GI Joe Sacrifice: Part 2
by Jaenelle Angelline
Summary: Cam testifies at the trial of her trafficker; meanwhile, Shana and Snake Eyes experience something that will change their lives forever.
1. Chapter 30: Homecoming

**Chapter 30: Homecoming**

"You're home! Welcome back!" Allie flew across the garage bay toward Shana, Snake Eyes, Charlie and Cam, not even pausing as she threw her arms around Shana and hugged her fervently, then without skipping a beat she turned to Cam and hugged her, just as tightly. "We missed you! Both of you! All of you!"

Clayton was a bit more decorous; he gave them a stiff-armed salute, though his broad smile said everything he wanted to say. "Good honeymoon?"

Shana snorted as she got her bags out of the back of the Hummer that had taken them from Fort Hamilton to Joe Base. "If you call starting a business, laying a ghost, solving an eight-year-old murder, assisting law enforcement with catching poachers and rescuing a baby wolf a good honeymoon."

"E-excuse me?" Allie stared at Shana. "This I gotta hear." As Shana opened her mouth, Allie placed a finger on her lips. "Over mess with Court and I and everyone else. That way we all can hear it."

Clayton, meanwhile, wandered over to where Cam and Charlie were getting their bags out of the back. "Congratulations on finally being properly married. I know that had to feel like it was never going to come, but at least it did finally happen."

"Yes, it did," Cam said warmly. "And it would have never happened without you, Clayton. I owe you, there's nothing I can say or do to repay you for that. I've…never been this happy in my life. Even with my back twisted and it hurts sometimes, I'm still happier than I've ever been before." She finished softly, "Thank you."

Clayton stepped close, so no one but she could hear him. "And I have you to thank for getting Charlie finally connected to someone here at base, not so alone. And Shana and Snake Eyes got married finally too, and if it hadn't been for you none of that would have happened, and there's nothing I can say or do to repay you for that too. All my people are finally happy."

As if on cue, the door to the garage bay flew open, and Wayne dashed in, pushed the door closed, and ran for the cargo elevator at the back of the garage bay. The door slid open obediently under his hand, he darted in, and the elevator hummed as it headed off to…wherever his destination was.

Barely two minutes later the garage bay door opened again, this time to admit Courtney—whose dripping-wet hair was a somewhat shocking, and definitely non-regulation, color of pink. "Wayne!" she screeched, even as Allie and Shana, Snake Eyes, Charlie, and Cam burst into laughter at the sight of her. "Which way did he go?"

Cam was laughing so hard she couldn't even speak; instead, she pointed one finger in the direction of the cargo elevator, and there went Courtney. Even Clayton was having a hard time keeping a straight face as their group headed for the garage bay doors. "I hope that wasn't permanent hair dye, because Courtney definitely can't walk around base with hair that color," he chuckled as he held the door for Can and Shana and Allie to pass through, the guys following. "If it was permanent she'll have to cut her hair."

"No she won't. All she has to do is bleach her hair, then re-dye it blond. It'll grow out eventually. It's not the first time Wayne's done this, and it's not the first time we found out on Courtney's hair that 'temporary hair color' isn't quite temporary. Last time it was blue."

Clayton stared at Allie. "Where was I when this happened?"

"Courtney hid from everyone until the bleach took effect and we re-dyed her hair. Why?"

"Because I would have liked to see her with blue hair. And get a picture."

Shana snickered. "I think Snake Eyes has a picture of her somewhere. Terrible picture, her eyes all red and teary and Allie and I bleaching out each side of her head. We'll take a look later and if I can find it I'll show it to you." Another grin. "So much for 'By The Book' Abernathy."

"One word out of you and you'll be on latrine duty for a week, Master Sergeant," Hawk warned.

Shana snapped a mock salute. "Won't hear it from me, no Sir. Not a word. Now, we do have to drop our things off in our quarters—"

"And you have to report to the Infirmary to get certified as physically fit for duty. Cam isn't ready to be released yet, but I think Doc will want to check on the progress of her healing, so Cam, maybe you'll want to go with her. Snake Eyes, Charlie, both of you report to Sergeant Slaughter and go through the physical fitness tests to get back on duty."

"Aye sir," Charlie said, and Snake Eyes nodded.

Allie peeled off from their group as they passed the women's wing, muttering something about checking up on Courtney, so Clayton escorted both couples to their quarters. They didn't spend much time there, just dropped their duffels in the rooms and came straight back out. Charlie and Snake Eyes saluted Clayton and hurried off in the direction of the gym, where Sergeant Slaughter's office was; Shana and Cam walked along, at a slightly more leisurely pace, telling Clayton about their honeymoon.

He shook his head when he heard about the ghost, then shook it again, harder and more grimly, when Shana revealed who the ghost was, where it had come from, and what happened to her. "I never really approved of the death penalty, but I am glad that whoever killed Kennedy did it. He should have gotten the death penalty for what he did—between you and Cam and now this little girl, I'm glad he died." Left unsaid was the mutual understanding that they all knew who exactly had killed Damien Kennedy, but no one was going to say anything. It was a secret they were all going to take to their graves, never to be spoken of even between themselves, and if it was wrong, well, Someone Else was going to sort that out, not them.

Shana and Cam proceeded now to tell him about Shana's business plans for the bed-and-breakfast, the arrangements she'd made with the caretaker, the helpful, mischievous little ghost girl who would make sure the guests got their money's worth. The cabin in the corner of the property that was going to be for Shana's use when she was in Atlanta visiting family, which Hawk knew was not going to happen frequently, given Shana's description of what had happened that first night at the O'Hara family dinner table. And he didn't blame her; after what Cam had sacrificed to bring Shana back, no one in the O'Hara family had any right whatsoever to say anything against Cam. He did smile when Shana told him that her father had taught Cam some Irish dance, and Cam's coppery blush showed she was pleased with the lesson.

Then Shana went on to describe their two weeks at the cabin, Cam's paintball tactics ('I still think she cheated,' Shana insisted stubbornly) and then the incident with the poachers and the discovery of the little wolf cub. "I still don't know what came over me, I mean, I'm trained to kill, and yet I couldn't just leave this little wolf cub to die. We named him Timber. Cam and I took turns nursing him and feeding him—fortunately by the end of the week he was eating ground-up raw meat, and that helped so we didn't have to run to town every couple of days to get formula. I swear, if I ever have kids I'll know exactly how to handle them because Timber was worse than a baby. Every couple of hours he'd be howling for food, and he didn't want it from anyone but me. He'd settle for Cam but only after howling for half an hour." She shook her head, but a small, fond smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "Anyway, we were in our last couple of days there when the wildlife rescue people came to get him, and I'll have to admit I was sort of a little sorry to see the little guy go. They said they'll rehabilitate him and let him go back to the wild, so all's well that ends well, I guess."

"And that's as it should be, wild animals belong exactly where the name says—in the wild." Doc came out of his office, his stern words softened by a smile. "Hello, Shana, Hello, Cam. It's wonderful to see both of you."

Clayton, grinning broadly, left his two girls with the doctor and returned to his office, still trying to wrap his head around the image of his stoic, tough Master Sergeant bottle-feeding an orphaned wolf cub.

Shana embraced Doc, and so did Cam. "Let me look at Shana first while you tell me what it was you were talking to Clayton about. Something about a wild animal, I believe…" and as he checked Shana's vitals, ran her through range of movement tests, and made sure her baseline readings were within norms for someone of her age, weight and height to be fit for physical activity and thus recertification for active duty, Shana and Cam took turns telling him about their honeymoon. He shook his head when he heard about Siobhan, looked grimly upset when he heard about their discovery of the body in the woods and the little girl ghost, and laughed aloud as he heard about the orphaned wolf cub who had chosen Shana as his adopted mother. "Well, when you decide to leave the Army you could always be a park ranger or a wildlife rescue expert," he chuckled as Shana gave him a dark look. "All right, go on with you. I've certified you as fit for duty; you've gained an astonishing amount of weight back for such a short time, and you're completely healthy as far as I can tell. Let me just take a blood sample—I want to see how you're doing after all the different drugs you were injected with—and once I see the levels have evened out and your hormone levels are okay, we'll put your implants back in."

Shana bounced off the exam table. "Thanks, Doc, you're the best!" She gave him a last hug, then turned to Cam. "I'm off to go meet with Sergeant Slaughter; he can administer the physical fitness tests along with Snake Eyes and Charlie. I'll catch you later in the mess, Cam—remember you have to be there to help me tell everyone about the ghost and the poachers and Timber!" and she vanished out the door.

Doc chuckled as Cam sat on the exam table where Shana had been sitting earlier. "Vitals fine…pressure normal…pretty much everything looks good. How is the pain? Are you still taking the pain medication?"

"Not really. Not on a regular basis. Just every once in a while when I overextended myself, because It doesn't even really hurt that much anymore."

"Are the muscles sore?"

She nodded, brow wrinkling as she tried to describe how she was feeling. "It is sore if I don't get up and move, but the more I use my arm, the better it feels. Keeping it still ends up aching more than getting up and moving around, so I've been using it as much as I could. And when it does ache, Charlie massages it for me, and that helps. And Shana worked suntan lotion into my back and skin while we were relaxing outside, and that made it feel better too. Charlie said if it starts hurting, let him know so he can massage it for me."

Doc walked around the table so he could look at her back. "The skin's stretched some, so that probably did help with the muscles sore from being held in the wrong position. You've actually made good progress; if you weren't military I'd recommend you skip surgery and just work on the skin until it stretches to the point where you have mobility back, but I realize you can't do that and you are anxious to get back out on duty, so while you were on your honeymoon I looked up a few doctors who are experienced with and skilled in scar reduction techniques. I realize you can't go now, with Leo Yu's trial, and the trial to the other molesters, starting in a couple of days, but I could call them and make an appointment for you afterward." She nodded quietly, and he looked up quickly at her silent response. She'd been relaxed and happy before his mention of the trial, and now she was quiet and apprehensive. "Nervous about the trial?" he asked, seemingly casual but intent on her response.

"Sort of," she said quietly, and that was that, but her body language had changed; slightly hunched shoulders, tight frown, unhappiness in her eyes even though her face had gone impassive, and that in itself was telling—she got that marble-statue look on her face when she was trying to hide what she was feeling. Which meant that this whole thing was bothering her very much indeed.

And then Alex walked in the room, and Cam went entirely tense all over. Doc could feel the muscles in her arm and back tighten under his hands—he was holding her arm out at full extension, pulling the scar tissue tight so he could test the elasticity of the scars, and he couldn't help but notice the tension.

Alex looked up, and a smile spread over her face. "Cam! I heard you and Shana were coming back today but I didn't know you were here already. Did you have a good honeymoon?" without waiting for an answer, she rushed on, "There are a few details I need in order to make my opening statements in court, so as soon as you're ready, we can go discuss them."

"Alex." Doc put a hint of sternness in his voice. "She just got in, and I'm conducting a medical exam. Could this possibly wait until after I'm done?" Cam was wearing a scoop-back tank top under her fatigue jacket, and while it covered everything but left the scars over her shoulder blades accessible, Doc still thought she might like some privacy while he was doing this. Added to that, she'd only just gotten in, and jet lag from California wasn't something to mess with when a month and a half ago you'd been at death's door. She needed time to properly settle in, in his medical opinion.

However, it didn't look like his opinion counted for much, as Alex spoke. "It won't take long, and then you can go and rest, I'm sure you're tired. I just need some details to write an opening statement for Leo Yu's trial. You can spare me half an hour, can't you? Right before dinner?" She sounded coaxing.

"I guess," Cam said, but Doc could tell her heart wasn't in it. "Doc, if you're done?" she looked at him.

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her no, he was not done and to come up with an excuse to keep her here until dinner, then insist she rest until the next day, but Alex didn't tell him how to do his job, and it wouldn't be a good idea to try and direct how she did hers. She obviously thought it was important, and who was he to gainsay what she needed? So he reluctantly lowered Cam's arm and handed her fatigue top back, giving her all sorts of instructions as he did so. "Now, don't overdo it. You've healed a lot in the three weeks since you left, but you still have a ways to go, and if you're not careful, anything you reinjure now could be permanent." It was his warning, in a roundabout way, to Alex that Cam shouldn't be subjected to inordinate amounts of stress.

"We'll be fine," Alex waved a hand dismissively, and Doc sighed as he watched the two women walk out of the infirmary—and vowed to himself to keep a close eye on Cam during the upcoming trials.

"He didn't make bail after the second set of charges, and after what happened to the first group of 'friends' who tried to post bond for him and ended up arrested, no one else has ventured forward, so he's been stuck in jail. They've also kept him in segregation; child molesters don't do well in jail, a lot of those guys have children of their own outside or have a sister or female family member who was raped., and child sexual slavery…well, let's say he's on the hit list for about eighty percent of the prison population. Added to that, we don't have a lot of Asians in prisons for crimes of this magnitude, and he sticks out, kind of. Ordinarily I wouldn't ask that he get special treatment, but in this case I made an exception since I need him alive for the other trials."

"I see," Cam said quietly.

Alex sighed. "Cam, I know this is hard for you right now, but after years of working with victims, I can tell you that they always feel better after they testify."

"Yes, Alex. You've worked with rape victims and child victims for years. Now how many of them had to testify in more than one trial? In one trial after another after another? How many of the people who…who raped me…did you track down? How many different times am I going to have to face a room full of strangers and give them every unforgettable, disgusting detail about what this one did to me, what that one did to me, what he did, what she did?"

Alex was at a loss for words as she fumbled through her paperwork. "We have thirty people. Twenty men and ten women."

Cam's eyes got a haunted look. "The women were the worst. They know what hurts worst on a female body and they target those places. With the guys…I could tell them they were hurting me worse than they actually were and they would stop when they thought I had enough. But with the women…they knew exactly what they were doing and how much something should hurt and I couldn't manipulate them like I could the guys." She looked at Alex, and there was so much pain and despair in those eyes that Alex blinked back involuntary sympathetic tears of her own. "Thirty times, Alex. How can I face these strangers thirty times?"


	2. Chapter 31: Yu's Trial

**Chapter 31: Yu's Trial **

If Shana noticed Cam was uncharacteristically quiet at the mess table that evening, she didn't say anything, and Cam did her best to force a cheerful smile to her face. It wasn't really hard; the story behind Courtney's bright pink hair had by then made its way around base and they all, even Cam, found it hilariously funny. Apparently Courtney and Frank Talltree had been involved in planning an (unspecified) prank on an (also unspecified) Joe; they were in the middle of planning when Wayne saw them whispering together, made the wrong assumption, and in a fit of jealousy, tipped some temporary pink hair dye into Courtney's shampoo—with clearly visible results. Fortunately, this time the dye HAD washed out (although Courtney still swore she saw hints of rose in her blond tresses) and Wayne was taking the precaution of sitting as far away from her in the mess hall as he could.

But all of that was forgotten as Shana related the adventures they'd had on their honeymoon. There was an undercurrent of hostility when she related what Siobhan had said about Cam, Charlie, and Snake Eyes, only to be drowned in a roar of laughter and approval when Charlie told them about Shana flinging her plate in Siobhan's face. Then came the discoveries at the bed-and-breakfast, and Allie, never a one for ghost stories, shivered as Shana told the story of the wine bottles shattering on the cellar floor.

The discovery of the identity of the ghost, where Shana had found the body, where her head had been discovered, and what had eventually been found out about the way she'd died, had every Joe in the room spellbound, and even Clayton listened, despite having heard most of this already. The story of the horses got smiles from the Joes; Snake Eyes' adventure with the kid and the candy wrappers in the forest had them all hysterical with laughter, and Shana's eventual decision to give the running of the bed and breakfast over to the caretaker got general approbation. "Because," Allie grinned cheerfully at Shana, "Now that you're married, you have to start thinking about kids, and kids require a lot of money," at which statement General Hawk nodded emphatically.

Everyone laughed—it was no secret that despite what he'd formerly thought about kids, he was plainly enamored with his, and scarcely three days went by that didn't see him—well, not exactly sneaking, but certainly acting as if he didn't want to be seen—heading out to Manhattan to see Liv and Auggie, and every time he went there was something else tucked in a bag; a stuffed animal, a soft teething toy, a pair of earrings or other jewelry for Liv, cases of diapers and formula. Despite Courtney's assertion that she didn't want to babysit and had no motherly skills whatsoever, she occasionally went along to babysit Auggie for the evening while Liv and Clayton went out with Alex and Ettienne.

Then their arrival at the cabin, their story of the paintball war, and how Cam had won it by playing dead. Duke proclaimed loudly that now that he knew the trick, no one was going to be able to pull that one on him, at which statement Shana just smirked knowingly. Then their encounter with the poachers in the mountains, Cam's warning, their decision to split and send the guys to recon the area while the girls kept an eye on the poachers; Charlie and Snake Eyes' discovery of the poacher's camp, their observations, bringing back the park rangers to apprehend them. Clayton narrowed his eyes as Shana related how they'd used the bond they had to communicate and stay in touch, and he pondered the different ways that could be used to the Joes' advantage on a mission.

Shana's ploy to keep the poachers unaware of her was a source of great amusement for the Joes, who all knew that 'silly' was not a word that could ever be appended to Shana. The discovery of the wolf cub in the crate brought angry mutters from these hardened soldiers, who while they had no problems killing an enemy aggressor, couldn't stand the thought of hurting a harmless baby animal.

Snake Eyes produced his cell phone now and passed it around; he'd taken a number of pictures of Shana with the wolf cub they'd named Timber. Shana, sitting on the floor, holding the cub and a baby bottle of puppy formula; Shana picking him up and cuddling him; Shana, curled up on the couch asleep after a midnight feeding, with the cub curled up against her side, his nose resting on her arm; Timber running happily down the hallway floor with Shana's cover in his mouth, Shana chasing him a few steps behind, and Cam and Charlie holding each other to keep from falling over laughing at the far end of the hall behind Shana. Timber chewing on Shana's boot, Timber rolling all over a freshly-made bed, Shana dumping him into a bath.

"Oh, yeah?" and Shana produced her own cellphone. Snake Eyes on his hands and knees, teaching the cub to stalk and pounce (on the same cover that Timber had so gleefully appropriated); Cam and Charlie trapping mice and dropping it in a playpen with Timber in it so he could learn what was prey and how to kill it; then, at the end of the week, two days before they were scheduled to leave and come back to base, a video obviously taken by Cam of Shana handing Timber to the wildlife rescue people. She was crying; Snake Eyes looked sad; and Timber was howling. His heartbroken wails were audible even after he'd been packed into the transport truck and Shana had handed them a generous donation check for their help.

"They said they'll rehabilitate him and release him back into the wild, so he's going to be okay. I just…I'll miss him," Shana sniffed, and Cam put a comforting arm around her. "I know I shouldn't get so upset about a wild animal, we knew it was only temporary, but I'm going to miss the little guy."

"We understand," Clayton said gently. "As soldiers, we're in the business of taking lives, not saving them. We don't get an opportunity to do that often, so it's nice when we can even if it's got four legs instead of two."

It wasn't until after mess and the two couples were heading back to their shared quarters that Shana braced Cam over her quietness at dinner. "You were kind of quiet at dinner. Did Doc find anything wrong?"

"No, everything was fine, he said that I was doing really well and if I weren't military he would recommend I skip surgery and just wait for my skin to stretch naturally. He was glad I wasn't taking as many of the pain pills as he thought I should, but he also told me if I was in pain, I shouldn't hesitate to take one."

"So that's good news. So why so quiet at dinner? You hardly laughed and I think I saw you smile maybe once."

Cam shook her head. "It's nothing. I guess I'm just tired. Jet lag and all. I'll see you tomorrow, Shana."

As Shana had passed the physical fitness tests the day before (and groaned the next morning at how stiff and sore she felt—Sergeant Slaughter's drills seemed even harder than she remembered from before they'd left for the Congo!) her next day started with a check of the duty roster to see what she was scheduled for, and then it was a whirlwind of duty schedules, recruit training, and personal physical training with Snake Eyes. It wasn't until evening mess that she realized she hadn't seen Cam the whole day.

Snake Eyes seemed tired from the day's activities too, so when they went back to their quarters that evening it was a quiet cuddle instead of…what they usually did. "Did you see Cam at all today?" she asked him. "Or Charlie?"

Snake Eyes shrugged. _I saw Charlie briefly. He said that since Cam isn't ready for active duty, Doc was having her stay in relatively good shape with some gentle exercises in the gym. I know she was there for part of the morning, and then Alex came to get her to discuss something about the upcoming trial. She didn't seem happy about it, and Charlie said she spent the rest of the day in their quarters working on written testimony. According to Stalker—I spoke with him this morning on the morning run through the base—he said Alex managed to track down and has evidence against thirty of the pedophiles who molested Cam._

"Thirty?" Shana tried—and failed—to wrap her head around that. "Jesus, Snake Eyes, I can't imagine—thirty people. Can you imagine what that must have been like for Cam, being fifteen and locked in a basement knowing that thirty people have paid your guardians to hurt you? My God."

_And those are only the ones that Alex managed to track down and who have charges enough to stick. Over the last few weeks while we've been on our honeymoon, she and the rest of Olivia's unit have been very busy matching names and bank account numbers in Cam's uncle's ledger to Leo Yu's client files at the travel agency and then hunting down the people attached to those names, getting search warrants, and looking for child porn or any possible evidence that they were involved with what happened to Cam. I'd say she's done incredibly well. _

"Yeah, can you imagine what it's going to be like for Cam, having to stand up in front of a courtroom full of strangers thirty times and have to tell them every lewd, disgusting, horrific, sickening detail of what happened to her? If I were Alex I'd try to get a closed courtroom—after Leo Yu, there's going to be a media circus around each one and the courtrooms are going to be packed—and I'll bet there will be some perverts who are there just to hear the details."

Snake Eyes froze. Shana felt him stiffen, waited a couple of minutes for him to tell her what was wrong. When he didn't, she poked him. "Sweetheart?"

His hands flashed. _I wonder if Alex will be keeping an eye on the courtroom. I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that others who hurt Cam, people who Alex hasn't caught, may attend the trials; for one, just to see what happens to the ones who did get caught; and two, to hear those disgusting details rehashed. Can Alex have plainclothes detectives sitting in the gallery?_

Shana's eyes widened. "You know, that's a good idea. Also if they are trained to read body language and kinesiology, they'd recognize how to tell when someone is getting really uncomfortable…and it sure as hell is going to be easy to spot who's getting a hard-on listening to her describe what they did to her. The kind of person who would rape a helpless, underage innocent child is definitely the kind of sick son of a bitch who would sit in a courtroom and relive the entire thing while listening to her testify." The she said, quietly, "But every person who gets caught is yet another person that Cam will have to testify for, and it might never end. This is going to be hard enough already—when is it going to become too much? She's an incredibly strong young woman, but even she has limits. Is this trial going to hit hers…and what will happen if it does?"

It was those sobering thoughts that ran through Shana's mind a couple of days later when she left the base to attend the first day of Leo Yu's trial. Cam had spent the evening before at Alex and Liv's apartment while they walked her through the trial procedure and tried to bolster her confidence and sagging spirits. It was clear to everyone who knew her now that she was definitely not herself; Alex had said that it was normal for victims testifying in a trial to be nervous going in and that she would be okay as the trial progressed, but Shana still wanted to keep an eye on her friend.

And, with her FBI classified training in kinesiology, she was also curious whether Snake Eyes' thought that people who had hurt Cam but hadn't been caught would attend the trial. She'd explained all of this to Clayton and Allie, and they'd all agreed to let her trade one duty shift with Allie and one with Courtney to allow her to attend at least the first day, a measure of silent support. Charlie would be attending that afternoon, having been unable to find someone to trade morning duty shift with. Flint had been remorseful; he'd lost track of time, hadn't realized that today was when the trial would start and so hadn't been able to ensure that Charlie was off. But he promised to take it into account and was, in fact, going to be busy that afternoon rewriting the duty roster so that Charlie would be able to have either the morning or the afternoon or both off duty for the rest of the week. Alex was estimating the trial would take about that long, but she also cautioned that cases like these could take up more time and some unexpected twists, and the defense lawyer that Leo Yu had was (in her terms) a 'sleazebag who will do anything for money' named Lionel Granger. She'd apparently butted heads with him over past cases, and while she disliked him personally as well as professionally, she did grudgingly admit he was good at his job and he might come up with some surprises for her.

So Charlie was going to be there this afternoon. In the meantime, as Shana sat down on a bench at the very back of the courtroom, she kept a careful eye on the people filing in, looking for someone who exhibited signs of nervousness, anxiety, anticipation, fear, any of the other emotions someone who was guilty and had not been caught would feel on going into a courtroom where their victim was. She'd worn civilian clothes—she didn't want them to peg her for one of Cam's friends/supporters by wearing her fatigues or anything that indicated her military affiliation and rank, so her dress consisted of her Class B slacks and a nondescript plain white Class B blouse with all rank, insignia and decoration removed. She didn't see anyone who appeared guilty or stressed, so she turned her attention to the actual trial.

The jurors, having already been questioned and empaneled, came in and filed into the jury box, then the judge came in. A taller older woman, with blond hair, piercing blue eyes and a no-nonsense crispness to her body language and demeanor, she stopped behind the desk nameplate that read 'Elizabeth Donnelly' and nodded curtly to the courtroom as they all rose at her entrance, then said, "You may be seated."

The courtroom sat, and Alex stood up. "Ladies and gentlemen of the court, thank you for coming. We are here today to try the defendant, Leo Yu, on multiple charges of child endangerment, child pornography, both making, possessing and distributing; sex trafficking of a minor and child prostitution. You will hear testimony from his victim, Cameron Arlington, currently an active-duty serving member of the US Army, based at Fort Hamilton here in New York, how he and his sister and brother in law conspired to deceive authorities into giving them guardianship of a vulnerable ten-year old orphan of an active duty Air Force Captain, then isolating and withdrawing her from normal life with the eventual goal of keeping her in sexual captivity and obtaining money from a huge ring of increasingly more violent pedophiles who paid exorbitant amounts of money to torture, rape, and photograph themselves and each other performing a variety of heinous sex acts with someone who could not, under any stretch of the imagination, be considered to have been a willing participant in the activities nor have the attained the age necessary in order to give informed consent. And what they did to her were things that no living human being would have agreed to. Mr. Yu's trial is only the first in a long string of trials; in gathering evidence in this case, the prosecution has found enough evidence to track down and initiate prosecution proceedings against no less than thirty of Mr. Yu's clients—he has been employed as a travel agent for a small New York travel agency and careful vetting of the agency's clients brought to his attention those who shared the same despicable taste he had for molesting children.

"Mr. Yu booked clients for a 'vacation getaway' of anywhere from a couple days to two to three weeks to a secluded retreat in the Western New York mountains. Here his sister and brother in law maintained the retreat and 'luxury commodities available for the discerning traveler'. That luxury commodity was Corporal Arlington. Prosecution will introduce into evidence a travel brochure for that western New York retreat; in it is listed such seemingly innocuous activities like hunting, fishing, camping and hiking, but Corporal Arlington's testimony will explain what these activities really were, and we have no doubt that you the jury will find this just as disturbing as the prosecution has."


	3. Chapter 32: Cam's Testimony

**Chapter 32: Cam's Testimony**

Lionel Granger rose to his feet, buttoning the front of his suit jacket, and Shana looked at him intently—and disliked him immediately. There wasn't really a reason to, she just…did. His suit was impeccably cut; his dark hair, with (artificial, she was sure) iron-gray streaks at his temples, was neatly combed back and groomed, yet somehow when she looked at him he seemed greasy, slimy; a 'sleazebag lawyer', exactly as Alex had described him.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the court, thank you for coming," and even his voice irritated her; smooth and slimy, oozing insincerity and arrogant self-confidence. "The prosecution would like to have you believe that my client is guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, of one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. They would like you to believe that my client was aware of, understood, and was complicit in, his sister and brother-in-law's deliberate and willful deception of military authority in order to gain custody of a vulnerable military orphan, their insidious plan to isolate the child and ultimately imprison her in a life of child sexual slavery from which there could be no escape. Now I ask you, ladies and gentlemen of the court, if you can believe my client guilty of such a crime.

"He has been a fixture of the Chinese community for three decades, is active in furthering the cause of Asian American business interests, has numerous wealthy clients who paid handsomely for the trips he arranged for them year after year. His expertise in organizing and arranging travel and events for those in his community, both in New York and out of it, in the state and all over the world, ensures his acceptance into the highest circles of society, ensures that his social calendar is always full and he has his pick of the crème-de-la-crème of New York society events to attend. There is, in short, no reason for him to jeopardize his social and professional standing by stooping so low as to conspire to abuse a child. Certainly not for a sister and brother-in-law with whom he was never in good standing, never on friendly terms. You will hear witnesses for the defense who will tell you that there was little love lost between them, that it was the bond of shared blood and nothing else that made him offer the mountain cabin to his sister when she and her husband were evicted from their New York brownstone, and that he never once suspected that they had an orphaned child locked in the basement, abused and imprisoned. My client is horrified at the tales of abuse this young Army Corporal relates, and sympathizes and wishes he had known so that he could have stopped it, have taken this wounded young child to his home and helped her heal, but he was unaware of it all.

"And as for the child porn found on my client's computer, yes, my client admits that he enjoys seeing young women. However, as many of you know, teenagers are dressing less like children these days and more like adults—it is no longer easy to tell who is an adult and who is a child, particularly when these young women dress provocatively and appear to enjoy the male attention they receive. If a woman is going to dress in that way, well, you can hardly blame a man for enjoying the goods placed so prominently on display. If a female chooses to dress that way she should be prepared for the type and amount of attention she receives, it is that simple. This is not pedophilia, since the female body in the photographs is past puberty and has developed the physical characteristics of an adult female. My client had no way of knowing she was under the age of consent, nor did he have any way of knowing she had not consented to the activities shown. Defense will prove this is all a misunderstanding and the prosecution is overreaching with these charges."

_It's not pedophilia if she's past puberty? Did I actually just hear this son of a - say that?_ Shana felt her jaw opening incredulously. _So if a little girl starts her period early it's not pedophilia even if she's like, nine?_ There had been something on the news not that long ago where an eleven year old girl had given birth, and Shana remembered she, Allie and Courtney had been incensed over that. _Wait'll I get back to base and tell The Girls!_

Alex stood as Granger sat down, and Shana could tell that she was angry over what Granger had just said, too; her shoulders were tense and her words were short, terse, clipped. "So, Mr. Granger, if a nine year old has an early period and is raped by her molester, he should not be prosecuted for child molestation simply because she has hit puberty, by your logic? I believe there are many here who would disagree with you on that, and rightly so."

"Objection, Your Honor," Granger said, and Alex held up a hand.

"Withdrawn." But even though it would be stricken from court records, neither jury nor gallery could 'unhear' what had already been said, and it would stick with them. Sneaky. Shana grinned approvingly.

"Prosecution calls its first witness, Corporal Cameron Arlington, US Army, currently assigned to Fort Hamilton." The door at the back of the courtroom opened, and Cam came in.

Shana wasn't sure if she'd just gained weight and the borrowed Class B's fit her better, or if she'd finally obtained her own set, but her dress uniform fit her exactly the way it was supposed to, blouse tucked neatly in, razor sharp creases in the slacks (for some functions, a dress skirt was required but for a civilian trial like this slacks were fine.) Her head was held high, and she strode in with a firm step. Only Shana, sensitive to her friend's body language, moods and facial expressions, could tell that she was nervous, that her face was pale and it was taking every ounce of effort and will to keep moving forward to the witness box. Shana wished, at that moment, that they could call the whole thing off just so that Cam didn't have to face this. _She's going through this because of me. Because she needed Yu's information to find me and bring me back. And she got it by cutting a deal with Alex to testify, even if it kills her. _Her lips set in a firm, thin line. _I'm not going to let it. I'll look out for her as she looked out for me and if this is too hard for her I will get Alex to drop it. Getting these pedophiles is not going to be worth their victim's life and health and sanity._

But Cam's voice was steady as she swore to tell the truth, and settled into the witness box with every semblance of calm and poise, though Shana could see her fingers were laced together too tightly in her lap, that her face was too pale, her body tense and nervous. Alex must have sensed it too, because her voice was gentle as she said "Corporal Arlington, please tell us in your own words what happened."

Judge Donnelly rapped her gavel for attention. "During this witness's testimony I would ask that all present remain quiet and seated. Any outburst from the room will be met with a contempt fine. Consider this your warning, there will be no other. Now, Corporal, please feel free to ask the court for a recess if you need it, as I understand this will be difficult for you and I am not unsympathetic."

Cam gave the judge a slight nod, then took a deep breath. "I am Cameron Lynn Arlington, daughter of Air Force captain Frederick Arlington based at Osan AFB in Korea. My biological mother brought me to my father and informed him that I was his, and then disappeared, leaving my father to raise me alone.

"I never felt the loss of a mother when I was growing up. Papa was always there, and as at the time he was living on base housing sharing space with his friend Captain Hammond, their family became mine, and I looked on Annie Hammond as my mother and their son, Jack Hammond, as my little brother.

"All of that changed when I was ten. Papa—there was a malfunction with his plane, it crashed, and he died, and I was told I couldn't stay on base with Mama Annie and the Hammonds. They told me they'd found some relatives of my unknown mother's, the parks, living in New York and they sent me to live with them. Uncle Hammond and Mama Annie pleaded for them to let me stay with them, they even looked into trying to adopt me, but the military sent me to New York to live with these two people who said they were my aunt and Uncle. I didn't really want to go, but I decided to try and make the best of it, since living in New York meant I could try for Juilliard and eventually dance for the New York City Ballet, which was my dream since I was very, very young and Papa enrolled me in my first ballet class."

"But it didn't turn out that way. I was never one to make friends easily, and I was lonely, and although I was lucky enough to get audition space at Juilliard, I had to depend on my aunt to get me there and we missed my chance. I was therefore registered in regular school until another spot should open up, and I was also lucky enough to be able to beg some dancing space from a local studio, where the teacher saw me dancing one day and offered to allow me to join a class free, as I had no money.

"But I had chores, and things to do at home, and I started to find myself spending more and more time away from my dancing and more time at the brownstone my Aunt and Uncle lived in. I cleaned, I had chores, I had homework, or my Aunt and Uncle had something they needed me to do when I would have been rehearsing, practicing, or at the studio working on audition performances and my technique. My Aunt would get very angry when I didn't so something right and she would hit me, either with her palm or her fist or more commonly with something—belt or yardstick or some other implement. One of my teachers at school noticed, and called Child Protective services, who in turn called police, but I…I was so ashamed of whatever I'd done wrong, when the detective asked me if everything was all right at home I couldn't tell him, and after a few days in foster care I was back with my Aunt and Uncle.

"The apartment building where we lived in New York had a small park with playground equipment and a little treehouse. The treehouse was old and the ladder had rotted, but papa had taught me how to climb trees without needing one and so the treehouse was my refuge; no one ever went up there. But when I was about fourteen and a half, I climbed into the tree and the treehouse collapsed, sending me to the ground and breaking both my legs.

"I don't remember a lot of the next couple days. I went to emergency surgery to put my legs back together, and woke up a couple of days later in the hospital with both legs in a cast up to my hips. I spent another couple of days there before the hospital staff let me go home."

She closed her eyes and her voice shook. "That night, the night I came home, my uncle came to me in my room and started…touching me. I was confused, I didn't understand what he wanted—I had not been…sexually active…yet, and when I finally understood what he wanted I fought him, but it was no use." She caught her breath in something very like a sob, and Shana felt her own eyes sting with tears. "It hurt…oh Goddess, it hurt…I screamed, I begged him to get off me, I cried for my Aunt, who I knew had to be in the next room, to help me, but no one came. The next morning when she came into my room she just slid the bloodstained sheets out from under me and took them away, and pretended she didn't hear me when I begged her to listen to me, to help me."

_Jesus God._ Shana couldn't imagine…yes, she'd been raped on the African leg of the trip, she'd been sexually tortured by Damien Kennedy, but what Cam had gone through was so much worse…she'd been a complete innocent, didn't even understand what sex was; a sheltered little ballerina, living in a protected little bubble of her dancing and her dreams, and this had been a particularly ugly way to be awakened to the realities of life. Shana, at least, had known what was likely to happen, had not been a virgin when it had happened, and had good memories of long nights in Snake Eyes' arms to help her bear the unending cycle of pain and humiliation. Cam hadn't even had that.

The courtroom was silent as Cam went on, her voice a harsh whisper in the deathly-silent courtroom. The jurors looked shocked, one woman looked pale. "Uncle came to my room every night for the three months I was in leg casts. And every morning my Aunt gave me pills, which I found later were supposed to keep me from getting pregnant. I hated it…I hated every last second of it all. One night I dragged myself down to the kitchen, grabbed one of Aunt's kitchen knives and took it back to my room with me, thinking foolishly that if I had a weapon I could keep him from hurting me. When he came to my room that night, I pulled it on him, threatened to cut his equipment off if he didn't leave me alone. He laughed at me, casually yanked it out of my hand, and that was the first night he deliberately hurt me, slapping my face and my…my chest…as I lay crying in bed. When he was done he said he would leave me a reminder of how stupid I'd been and he stabbed my chest, very deeply, right here…" she traced a line around the upper curve of her left breast, and one of the jurors made a strangled choking sound, instantly muffled. Even Judge Donnelly looked appalled. "Aunt tied my hands to the bed and stitched it up—fortunately it didn't get infected.

"By the end of the three months, I stopped fighting him—I learned that it hurt less if I didn't fight him when he came to my room. And I learned not to scream—he liked it when I screamed and cried. He liked hurting me. I realized that early on, and it was the only way I could get back at him—by denying him the satisfaction of hearing me cry. I told myself that as soon as I got back to school, I would tell them. I would tell them everything. I'd been reluctant to do that the first time the school called the police, but at that time, one officer—a tall man named John Munch-he'd struck me a really kind and caring and if I could see him again I would tell him everything, because it would kill me if I had to keep on going like this.

"I think my Uncle and Aunt knew what I was planning on doing, and to this day I don't know why I didn't tell the doctor who cut the casts off my legs and pronounced me healed. I've thought about that over the years; when the doctor cut the casts off my legs, I could have told him what was happening, could have told him what my Aunt and Uncle were doing, and maybe he could have protected me, made an excuse to take me to the hospital for care and once there they couldn't have touched me. I have always wondered why I didn't. My Aunt was standing right there pretending she was concerned for me but if I talked and the doctor listened—there was nothing my Aunt and Uncle could have done with an entire clinic full of people there.

"But I didn't, and I didn't realize what a mistake I'd made until we were on the way home and My Aunt pulled over so my Uncle could open the back door of the car and tried to slide in. I don't know…It just felt wrong, and I started to open my mouth to scream, hoping someone driving by would hear me, would stop, and I'd be safe…but he stuffed some cloth soaked in horrible-smelling stuff over my mouth and nose and I couldn't breathe, and that was the last thing I remembered before I blacked out. "

She took a deep breath and for the first time looked up, and everyone could see the tears pouring down her face. "When I opened my eyes I was in a bare concrete room , tied to a low metal cot by my wrists and ankles, and he—Leo Yu—was there." She pointed a finger at the defendant, and every eye in the courtroom turned toward him. "He was the one who told me that my life was over, that from now on I belonged to the three of them, that in exchange for feeding me and caring for me for the last five years, I was now going to earn them money. He said…I owed them, and when I paid them off, they'd let me go, and I was so sick and my head hurt that I actually believed him for a minute."

She dropped her head, and her words were barely audible to the silent courtroom. "He stayed at the cabin for six months, working with my Uncle to 'teach' me what I had to do to be a 'good girl'. I…they did…so many things…Oh, Goddess," And she broke, burying her face in her hands. The room was silent, the only sound being her broken sobs.

The door at the back of the courtroom burst open, and Charlie flew in. He didn't stop; ignoring the gallery, the jurors, the judge, who seemed glued to her bench, frozen, he crossed the courtroom floor with quick steps and wrapped his arms around her. She jerked up, startled, then saw his face, the look of anguish in his eyes, and she dissolved into tears, leaning forward over the witness box and burying her face in his shoulder.

Charlie held her, hushed her, his hand smoothing her hair, but if anything, her sobs got stormier. He looked up at the judge. "Your Honor, please."

Judge Donnelly never questioned what he was doing there, or who he was. Maybe she saw the gold band on his finger. At any rate, she tapped her gavel softly and said, "Court will recess for lunch. We will reconvene in an hour and a half. Counsel, I'd like to see you in my chambers, please." As spectators started to file quietly out of the gallery, and the bailiff helped the almost-tiptoeing jurors out of the jury box, Alex followed Elizabeth Donnelly into the judge's chambers.


	4. Chapter 33: Evidence

**Chapter 33: Evidence**

Elizabeth Donnelly took off her glasses and wiped her not-quite-dry eyes with a tissue. "Jesus, Alex. This is a hell of a case you've brought me. Where the hell do you find these people?"

Alex sat down in the chair in front of Liz's desk abruptly, like a balloon deflating. "I'm sure you know about the sabbatical I took to pursue volunteer work with the ICC?"

Liz nodded.

"Well, I was approached by a guy named General Clancy about working with them to catch one of the worst war criminals in the Congo. Me being the naïve idiot I was, I said yes. I never knew this was all part of a larger plan for him to gain command of a top-secret classified military black-ops project. I can't go into details—it is classified—but that soldier sitting on the stand out there is a member of the project." She thought carefully about what she was going to say before she said it. "They rescued me from the Congo, brought me back barely alive, and uncovered the plot hatched by the rogue General Clancy to discredit their commanding officer, which in turn was part of a much larger plot by Cesar Velez to capture me and put an end to the threat I represented to his cartel. It was only through their persistence, teamwork, sheer luck, and skill that we all survived at all." Her lips quirked in a half smile. "I'm sure you know by now that Detective Olivia Benson is on maternity leave?"

"I've heard," Liz said dryly—the news that Olivia was pregnant, had given birth to a baby boy and was now a single Mom with a mysterious military man for the child's father had fed the rumor mill between the cops and the DA's offices for the last year.

"Yes, it would have been kind of hard to miss, wouldn't it?" Alex smiled. "Well, the father of Liv's baby is the commanding officer for those soldiers out there. And the reason this is all coming to light right now is because when I heard that warlords had raided the village with some of the Congolese children I've come to care for very deeply, I volunteered to go with an armed troop to go find them and rescue them…and they insisted on being the ones that went with me. Seeing that they are a black ops project, and US military presence on the African Continent has to be kept low-key, they were the perfect choice to go, and while we did get the children out, one of the female soldiers—Corporal Arlington's best friend—was captured by the warlords and sold to human traffickers. Cam Arlington came to me with a ledger full of names, bank account numbers, and price lists showing which 'client' paid how much to do what to her, and offered it to me—and promised to testify against them—if we arrested Leo Yu and I cut him a deal after he gave us information that would get Cam into the slave market in Amsterdam."

"She offered to go back into that hell for her best friend?" Liz sounded horrified—and impressed. "Jesus, Alex, I like you but even I wouldn't do that for you!"

"I couldn't do that for anyone else either," Alex said frankly. "She's a better woman than I. But anyway, to finish up, insertion at the slave market was successful, I charged Leo Yu for child porn, then as soon as the detectives got warrants for his paperwork and his travel agency offered us access to his client files, we started matching the names in Cam's ledger to the names in Yu's files. As soon as we had the first three I knew I could make it stick; there was a demonstrable chain if custody from the time the client first walked into Yu's office to the time they paid Arlington's Aunt and Uncle for the 'luxury commodity'."

Liz winced. "Don't. Don't say that. I don't want to hear a child referred to as a 'commodity'." Alex nodded, and Liz said, "Not that it's any of my business, but was the effort worth it? Did she get her friend out?"

"Oh! Yes, she did. Remember the Damien Kennedy scandal a few weeks back? That was Corporal Arlington and her friend, Master Sergeant Shana O'Hara. I had the trial postponed an extra week so they could have a three-week honeymoon with their new husbands."

"I remember hearing about the case. Tell them I said congratulations. In the meantime—Alex, how many of these sons-of-bitches did you round up from the ledger and Yu's files?"

"Thirty-one."

"Thirty-_one_?" Liz's voice rose in a squeak. "Alex, that poor Corporal out there is going to have to tell this disgusting story thirty-one times?"

"I don't know. I didn't think about it while I was writing up charging documents and hunting these people down, but when Cam got back from her honeymoon and I told her how many of her molesters I'd been able to track down, she looked horrified at the number of times she'd have to testify and she said the same thing you just did –'How am I going to tell everyone this thirty-one times?' So I started offering plea deals right and left, I have a lot of them on the table for my clients right now. No one's bit it yet, but I know several are considering it because they are rather highly-placed in society and exposure would be…undesirable. I think many would rather simply register as a sex offender quietly and avoid public exposure. The money they paid to Leo Yu to rent Arlington is in his bank account—he had those funds channeled into a separate bank account—and I'm planning on asking the court to award that as restitution to Corporal Arlington."

"Hmm." Liz shrugged. "In the meantime, have you thought about combining the trials? Charging groups of defendants instead of one at a time? Arlington won't have to testify as often, it'll be easier on her emotionally."

"I hadn't thought about that, but yes, I could. Several of them came in groups—the largest group was seven at once. And I have all seven of them—we found one through Yu's files and in exchange for dropping the attempted murder charge to attempted manslaughter, he rolled and gave up his other six friends. Two of them were women."

Liz shuddered. "I can't imagine how she must have felt, confronted by seven people who wanted to hurt you and having two of them be women. I can't show partiality or favoritism in my courtroom, Alex, but please convey my regrets that all of this happened when it's over and tell her I admire her courage."

Alex was still thinking about this as she left Liz's chambers and returned to the courtroom, only to stop just inside the door. Cam and Charlie hadn't left, hadn't gone to lunch; they were sitting in the front row of benches in the empty courtroom, Charlie hugging Cam close while Shana apparently was trying to cheer her up with some ridiculously funny story about herself and Snake Eyes. Cam wasn't smiling—not quite—but she had stopped crying and was sitting up, wiping her damp cheeks with a tissue. Alex slipped out the side door before they noticed her there; as much as they'd made her feel welcome, and as important a part of her life as they'd become, she didn't think they'd welcome her presence right now, not as she was emotionally torturing Cam.

_There are times when I really, really hate my job. _

Court reconvened at one thirty, and Cam was controlled and composed again, although her eyes were red and she clutched a tissue in her hand, crumpling and opening it, crumpling and opening it. Charlie came in and took a seat in the first row behind Alex, and as if by some sort of compact, Cam was looking at him more, whether to draw strength from his presence and his encouraging smile or whether it was easier for her to talk if she could pretend she was talking to him and not a room full of strangers, Alex couldn't tell.

But her voice was steady as she continued. "That was what they called the 'breaking-in' period. In slavery terms, it was when you took a new girl and…acquainted…her with all the things she would later be required to do with clients; there were costumes for those who wanted to. Some wanted a girl who appeared to be willing, and for them I was taught to make it sound like I liked it—if I wasn't convincing enough I'd be beaten." Her eyes dropped to the tissue in her hands. "And there were those who didn't care about role-playing or scenarios, they just wanted someone they could hurt. They were the worst ones…and the ones my Aunt and Uncle and Mr. Yu seemed to find most frequently. They—Aunt and Uncle—kept a ledger of names of people who paid to use me, their bank account numbers, and what each one wanted to do, what each client's preference was."

Alex stood up, her chair sliding across the floor the only sound in the silent courtroom. "Prosecution would like to admit into evidence Exhibit A, which is the ledger that Corporal Arlington is speaking of. This ledger contains dates and names of the people who came to the cabin, the bank account numbers from which the funds were paid, and the clients' preferred activities, which Corporal Arlington will explain in a moment." She nodded to Cam and sat back down.

Cam took a deep breath. "Since this was supposed to be a vacation getaway, a retreat, there had to be a selection of vacation-appropriate activities listed on the brochure advertising the retreat, which Yu provided his clients with once he ascertained they were 'interested' in the 'luxury commodity' the cabin offered."

Alex stood again. "At this time prosecution would like to enter into evidence this travel brochure, with a photo of the cabin and surrounding areas, a detailed map of the property, the distance covered by the trails. Also listed are various activities and a price list for each activity. As you will shortly hear, each of those 'activities' meant something entirely different to the child trapped in this hell."

Cam's voice was bitter."Hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, bicycling, riding and horseback activities are in the brochure. Hunting involved my Aunt and Uncle turning me loose in the woods and the clients would pay to 'hunt' me down."

Alex rose again. "Prosecution offers into evidence Exhibit C, a DVD of one such 'hunting' expedition. There were cameras hidden all over the property, and clients were told where they were so that they could 'herd' Corporal Arlington within view of them so that their atrocities could be recorded. This is a demonstration of the shock collar."

She cued up a DVD in the player under the TV set up in the corner, and it started playing. Cam was on screen, nude, her hands in handcuffs behind her back, a heavy black box on a leather strap buckled around her neck with a padlock run through it. Even if she'd managed to get her wrists free of the cuffs, there was no way she was getting that collar off. The courtroom watched in silence as Cam ran; the camera was silent, but the fear in her wide eyes and the scratches on her bare arms, torso, legs, the dirty, bare feet torn and bleeding from whatever she'd run through to get to where she was at the moment.

And then she stepped over some invisible line in the dirt.

The minute she crossed that line she flopped to the ground, unable to stand anymore. Her body flailed, thrashed; her mouth wide open in a scream that was all the more grotesque for being silent. She couldn't control her limbs; her eyes were wide, desperately looking at the patch of ground on the other side of the electric fence, the patch of ground that represented an end to the electric shock that punished her body, but she couldn't even coordinate enough to crawl to that. She thrashed, helpless, screaming, tears streaming from her eyes until two men stepped out of the treeline and grabbed one ankle, yanking her back across the invisible boundary. Her body flopped limply to the ground, limbs still twitching, chest heaving as she tried to get in air after screaming from the shocks, and she was so exhausted she didn't even try to fight as they threw her face down over a large boulder, one that seemed deliberately placed there for just this purpose …

Alex switched it off quickly, but no one in the courtroom could have doubted what happened next. Cam herself sat stony and silent, so pale Shana was afraid she was going to faint, her hands shaking. Even the judge leaned forward. "Corporal Arlington, if you need a moment…"

"No…no. I'm f-f-fine. I just….I didn't know…they taped it. They taped it." She seemed like she was in shock.

"Prosecutor Cabot." Liz Donnelly's voice held the whipcrack of a demand.

"Your Honor." Alex looked up at Liz.

"From Corporal Arlington's reaction, I take it you did not inform her you had this."

"No, Your Honor."

"Did you not think she would have liked to have known about this before she walked in? That as much as you wanted an emotional reaction to sway the jurors, this could be devastating to her self-confidence?" Alex started to open her mouth, but Judge Donnelly cut her off with a raised hand. "Save it, Prosecutor. Do you have any other such tricks up your sleeve, any more videos like this?"

"Your Honor, we have dozens of videos like this seized from those who paid to molest Cameron Arlington. Part of their vacation 'package' was a video recording of the activities they participated in, as sort of a twisted souvenir. Every person apprehended in this child sex slavery ring had this personal souvenir of the things they did while at the cabin." Sounds of disgust rippled around the room; while the jurors didn't join in, their faces showed they shared the sentiment.

"Madam Prosecutor, you will review all further videos of this nature with your witness. Prior to your submitting any more things of this nature into evidence you will obtain your witness's knowledge and consent. You will inform her when you are going to introduce them and she will decide how much of this the court is allowed to see. Any more surprises of the kind that just happened will be punished with a contempt fine, is that clear?"

"Yes, Your Honor." Alex nodded, looking slightly ashamed of herself. "I'm sorry, I never even thought that—"

"Save your apology for your witness, Prosecutor." Judge Donnelly looked at Cam, and her tone and expression softened. "On behalf of the court, Corporal Arlington, I extend my sincerest apologies. It will not happen in my courtroom again."

"It's all right," Color had come back to Cam's face and she had stopped shaking. "It…took me by surprise, is all. I'm fine. It won't happen again."

"No, it won't because I refuse to allow it. Now. Court will recess for the day—"

"Your Honor, please, it's not necessary—" Cam tried to interrupt.

"Yes, it is. I am going to give the prosecution time to meet with the witness, prepare her for the rest of the trial properly so we don't have a repeats of the deplorable events of this afternoon. Court is now adjourned." Donnelly tapped her gavel.


	5. Chapter 34: Activity

**Chapter 34: Activity**

Shana was furious as she turned on Alex outside the courtroom (she had a feeling that if Charlie were there he'd be doing this for her, but since he'd had to go back to base that afternoon, Shana was the only one there to stick up for her friend.) "How could you do that to Cam?" she demanded, flushing as red as her hair, eyes turning to emerald ice. "How could you just show that in open court without even thinking that this would be a shock to her?"

"I didn't know she didn't know about the videos! Every person we've arrested in connection with this case whose name was in the ledger has had a video—some of them multiple videos—of what they did while at the cabin and what they paid for! What I got from Leo Yu were in his computer under marketing samples. I wasn't planning to show all of them, I just wanted the court to see what the brochure meant by those activity tags."

"Cam described it for them, Alex, you didn't have to get unnecessarily graphic—"

"STOP IT!" Cam's voice cut through the rapidly escalating argument, and both older women looked at her in surprise. "Shana, I appreciate your trying to look out for me, but Alex doesn't try to tell you how to do your job, so don't try and tell her how to do hers. Alex, it was a surprise, I wasn't prepared for it, and while I was shocked and startled, I understand why you did it. I don't like it, though, and I would like to have a say in what you show the court. I…I was less startled to see the video than I was to have seen me in it—I always suspected they might have cameras hidden in the woods, and that everyone but me knew where they were because they always picked certain spots on the property to conduct…outdoor activities. What startled me was seeing what I...looked like…before the fire took so much of my skin. I had…a nice body…Charlie would have liked that…so much better than…what I look like now."

_Oh Jesus God._ Shana swallowed hard. She hadn't even thought about this aspect, that Cam's emotional pain would have been rooted in self-consciousness over what she looked like. She tried to downplay it, not make a big deal out of it, but Shana wondered now how this affected her time with Charlie, whether it was a huge problem in bed. _She definitely needs scar surgery. Even if they didn't impede her mobility and movement, getting them removed will do a lot toward helping her with her physical insecurity. _And then another thought; _I'm going to have a talk with Charlie. I'm positive he loves her and wouldn't say anything to hurt her, but he's still male and men don't think about what's coming out of their mouths when they're in bed with a woman. He may have said something that fed into her insecurity and not realized it. Oh Cam, I wish this had never happened to you. I wonder who you'd be now, what you'd be like now, if none of this had ever happened._

"I don't regret that it happened," Cam said, very softly, an uncanny echo of Shana's thoughts. "if none of this happened the way it did, I wouldn't be where I am today and have a job and a husband and amazing friends like all of you. I just wish sometimes that I looked a little more normal, and seeing what I looked like before it all happened…Just made me wish I didn't look so ugly now."

"You are _not_ ugly," Shana said fiercely. "I'll break the arm of anyone who dares say so. You're a survivor and each of those scars reminds you of how much you survived and reminds you to be compassionate to others. And you are, you're one of the most compassionate people I've ever met. You're a beautiful person, inside as well as out."

"Yes you are. And I'm sorry. I really should have told you. If you're up to it, we can go to my office right now and I'll show you what I have and you tell me if you want it shown or not." Alex was sincerely regretful.

Cam nodded. "I'd like that. Shana—"

"If you don't want me to come I won't, but I'd be honored if you did. You've tried to handle all of this yourself, hold it all in and deal with it yourself, but you can't do that all the time, Cam. I'm your friend. I want to help you. You have no idea how much it hurts having to stand back and watch you try to deal with this alone."

Cam swallowed hard, and her eyes were suspiciously bright as she said, "I'd be glad if you came with me, then. It…is hard…doing this alone."

"You're not alone. Never alone. Never again." Shana gave her a fierce hug. "I will be here for you for the rest of my life." A smile. "Remember Dad adopted you into the O'Hara clan, and that makes you my sister. And sisters stick together."

And fifteen minutes later she was glad she had come along.

She'd never dreamed anyone could do these kinds of things to a child, and she wished, fervently, that whatever Cam had done to ask her Goddess for justice for what had happened to her would be slow and excruciatingly painful. She'd been horrified at the 'hunting' video sample; she had no idea how to describe what she felt now looking at these other 'video samples' Yu had shown his clients to get them interested in the cabin and its captive.

Fishing. Shana's dad had taken her and her brothers fishing lots of time when they were younger; long periods of boredom alternating with periods of excitement when a fish bit the bait and they tried to reel their catch in; the triumph when they succeeded , especially if it was a big one that took a lot of effort and sweating (and cursing, when Shana got old enough to go fishing with her brothers by themselves without Dad around; neither Mom nor Siobhan would have ever deigned to do something so pedestrian as fishing) was the high point of the whole battle.

Now, sitting numbly at the small table with Alex's laptop playing Yu's sample videos, Shana wondered if she would ever think of fishing again as harmless—or indeed if she herself would ever enjoy fishing again. Cam's wrists were tied with rope and leather belt straps, so tightly that Shana's own wrists ached in response; heavy chain was locked to those straps and Cam was lowered into the water at the far end of the pier. Her ankles were weighted to negate her natural buoyancy, and she couldn't surface until they pulled her up, hacking, choking, coughing up water. Or they went out on the lake in a small motorboat, 'towing' her behind on the end of that same chain and wrist straps, increasing their speed until her body was skipping over the surface of the water with bone-bruising force.

Camping spurred another shiver of disgust; seeing Cam tramping through the woods with a huge pack on her back, carrying gear for the guests, then watching as she had to set up the tent, make a fire, and cook food. She had to go down on her hands and knees to serve as a 'table', then they threw leftovers in the dirt and made her crawl to eat them, or they found fault with her preparations and punished her.

Hiking brought back memories of tramping all over the Sierra Nevadas with Snake Eyes, setting out in the cool calm of the morning and exploring the land, occasionally stopping to make love on a sun-warmed rock, to skinny-dip in a cool mountain lake, then return tired, in time to eat dinner, snuggle up in front of a small fire, and fall asleep blissfully content in each others' arms.

But for Cam, hiking meant walking naked through the woods, without shoes, wrists tied, ankles shackled. When her bare, torn feet were so bruised and cut up she couldn't walk anymore, she was punished.

Riding was very simple—a variation of the wooden pony torture used during the Inquisition. Horseback activities involved 'harnessing' Cam to a small old-fashioned wagon, taking the place of a horse or pony, her wrists tied behind her back, forced to walk while dragging the cart behind her.

And that was just the stuff they did with her outside.

None of them were dry-eyed when Alex was done. Shana was tearing up at the thought of the pain her friend had endured; Cam was watery-eyed as she had to decide which video Alex could show and how much she was willing to let the courtroom see, what photos Alex could use and what she really didn't want anyone to see. Shana couldn't even bring herself to touch the photos; she didn't want to see what they were, didn't want to know.

"I'm sorry, Cam," Alex said quietly. "I didn't know you didn't know about the videos, the pictures."

"Most of these pictures are actually still shots from video, but yes, I remember them taking photos of me. Sometimes I wore a hood or a mask so no one would see my face and figure out how old I was; other times, they just took pictures. I suspected they took videos at the cabin; I just never knew they had cameras out in the woods, filming what I did, watching every move I made. I should have expected to see them, but I didn't, and I'm sorry the judge yelled at you for it; it wasn't my intent to get you in trouble."

"Don't feel bad. Liz and I go back a long way, and she's never been one to mince words. She says exactly what she thinks without worrying about what others will think, and in this case she was right to yell at me. Now, Cam, while we're mentioning her, Liz said I should try to group some of the trials together, try some defendants together, so that it'll be easier on you. Here's a list of defendants I'm filing cases against, and I was hoping you could tell me which cases I should try together."

Shana looked at the list over Cam's shoulder. Name after name after name. Thirty-one lines of letters, accompanied by amounts paid; by themselves nothing more than little black marks on a page, but each name was another person, another set of tortures that Cam had somehow endured, and respect for her friend grew even as disgust swept over her, that this many people could have found a skinny, starved, captive child so desirable. Allan Singletary. Ritchie Curry. David Biehl. Shana recognized those names as the worst offenders—Allan Singletary was the name Allie and Duke used to leverage their way into the Amsterdam market.

"Reggie Chatham and Devon Ross came together. They…weren't bad."

"Both those men are prominent citizens and I have plea deals on the table for them which I think they're considering just to keep their names out of the papers."

"I can live with that," Cam said. "They weren't deliberately cruel or wanted to make me bleed or hear me scream. They'd give me food and water and whenever they came I was relieved because in comparison to some of the others that came, they were kind."Cam pointed to two more names on the list. "Joseph DiSabato and his wife Christina. I knew him as Reverend Joseph—they had this elaborate scenario where I'd have to recite prayers or read the Bible, they would discipline me as 'penance' when I was done."

Shana wanted to be sick.

"Anita Curtis, Andrew Gordon, Tom Connolly, Caroline Chapman, Greg Lyons, Paul Rhodes, and William Keller all came together, twice, that I can remember. Anita and Caroline came together without the guys on three other separate occasions. They were the first women to come who actually wanted to do things with me—Aunt didn't, she stayed away from it all. Uncle was the one who would get instructions to prepare me for whatever the guests wanted to do, but my Aunt was the one who came in after they were done, helped clean me up and gave me first aid. She never openly approved of what was happening, but she never disapproved, either. She was never openly cruel, deliberately trying to hurt me, but she wasn't gentle when she cleaned me up if I was hurt so badly I couldn't get cleaned up on my own, and she never expressed sorrow or regret or pity."

Alex was scribbling furiously. "I wish your Aunt and Uncle were here so I could prosecute them. Your Aunt never participated, but she was complicit in what happened and helped cover it up. Those seven were arrested around the same time, so I can lump them all together as co-defendants. I can try DiSabato and his wife together too. Oh, and Cam…they aren't ordained ministers of any church or religion that I can find. Just a couple of pedophiles who had a sick fantasy they wanted to play out."

Cam nodded, and went on. "Fumiko Ozawa, Takahiro Nori, and Ichiro Imatsu always came together. They didn't rape me, but they were really into just pain. They'd tie my wrists to the ceiling and whip me all over. I could move as much as I liked but I couldn't get away."

David Chan, Han Zhu, and Zhang Li were into ropes. "They tied me up in webs of rope and just took pictures. Never took my clothes off, just tied me up in really uncomfortable positions, took pictures, then tied me in a different way and took more pictures. But in between they'd give me water, food, let me stretch my legs and arms, and if I got rope burn they always put antibiotic ointment on. They were kind."

_Tying you up just to take pictures of you is kind?_ But Shana could understand why Cam felt that way, after knowing what some of the more brutal customers put her through. In comparison with people who raped and beat and whipped her, simply being tied and having pictures taken was…tame. And it had to have been a relief for young Cam.

"Laurent Olivier, Johannes Bekhuizen, and Jens Vooris also came together. And Gary Smolyanskiy, Konstantin Konevsky, and Nikolas Zlotnik. Everyone else—they came separately.

"Out of this list of names, is there a trial you're particularly dreading?"

Cam swallowed hard. "Allan Singletary. Ritchie Curry. Anita's group. Jean-Pierre Coquillette. Cyril Etherington. And one other name on here—Antonin Jelescu. I can't believe you got him...I almost wish you hadn't. The last time I saw him…I swore I would kill myself before I let him touch me again."


	6. Chapter 35: Sick

**Chapter 35: Sick**

"How are you?"

Doc's question was unnecessary; Shana looked pale and tired, and Cam's eyes were dark, haunted with old memories and remembered pain.

"Every time I think about the trial I throw up. What they did was…barbaric. Inhumane. Just thinking about it all makes me sick. I couldn't even eat when we got home this evening." Shana flopped down in a chair, heaving a huge sigh that seemed to come up from the soles of her boots. "Came here to get something to settle my stomach, if you have anything."

"Me, too. Please," Cam sat down in the chair next to Shana, moving slowly as if she would break if she moved too quickly. "I have no appetite. I couldn't eat when we got home this evening either. Charlie's going to try to get some fruit from the kitchen and I'll nibble on it while we're in our room tonight, but I don't think I could manage more than that."

"I'm pretty sure that your appetite loss is from stress, so I'm not going to force either of you to eat, but I will remind you that both of you made amazing progress in gaining weight and muscle back while you were on your honeymoon, and I don't want you to lose the ground you gained. I haven't gotten to Shana's blood tests yet—I've been focusing mainly on Cam—"

"Good. By all means, take your time. I'm fine, she's the one who needs it." Shana waved dismissively.

"Now, Cam, I've managed to find a burn scar specialist in the city. Dr. Allison Flowers is a very well-respected aesthetic reconstructive specialist, and she practices—performs her surgeries—out of Mount Sinai Medical Center. It's a thirty-minute ride from here, so it's not far, and they are world-renowned for being able to reconstruct and minimize scarring and restore mobility to joints and limbs affected by scars."

Cam's tired face lit up. "That sounds absolutely wonderful," she said fervently. "Can you give me the number so I can call and schedule a consultation?"

"I'll do better than that. I'll call and schedule one for you. It'll actually be better if I do it—coming from an Army doctor, and you being an active-duty soldier, there's no way they'd refuse—and if I call I can fill out the reimbursement forms right there for General Hawk to sign."

"But I have my own money, the Army doesn't have to pay—"

"You're kidding about that, right?" Hawk had entered the infirmary at just that moment and stopped facing her, frowning, arms folded. "I'd be insulted if you didn't let us take care of you. Cam, you're too used to being alone. You don't have to be so ruthlessly independent and self-sufficient all the time. We care about you and we want to help you, and we get frustrated when you don't let us do that. We see you struggling and it hurts watching you. We are your friends, and friends help each other. When you refuse to allow us to help you it makes us feel helpless, and I, for one, don't like that feeling." He turned to Doc. "Go ahead and make the call, schedule the appointments, and bring me the forms. I'll sign them and make whatever travel arrangements I have to in order to get this done." He strode out of the infirmary.

Cam blinked, staring after him. "But you guys don't have to," she murmured.

Doc laid a hand on her arm, stopping her in midsentence. "We take care of our own. You sacrificed so much to bring one of our own home, nearly losing your life in the process. I know you seem to think of yourself as not an important part of the team, Cam, but that couldn't be further from the truth. You are one of us, and we care for our own. No one ever gets left behind. No one." He stepped back. "Now off with you, go on to your room and try to relax. Today was a hard day, but I'll bet as the trial goes on it'll get easier."

Shana obediently swallowed them pill Doc handed her, but she still felt slightly nauseous as she headed back to the 'couples' wing', as people had taken to calling the short hallway where she and Snake Eyes, Charlie and Cam had their quarters. Cam slipped into her room without a word, and Shana walked into hers. In the cool darkness of the room, she saw Snake Eyes stretched out on the bed, apparently asleep; he cracked open one eye as she started to strip out of her uniform.

"Not tonight, sweetheart," she said quietly. "Just...the trial today, and some of the stuff cam told us…I still feel sick. How in God's name can someone do that to a child?"

Snake Eyes pulled her down into bed with him without even letting her get into clothes, and she curled up with her back against his broad, muscular chest, feeling her bare skin rubbing against his. Such simple, sensual contact; he was wearing boxers and nothing else, and although she could tell from the movement of a certain part of his anatomy that he was interested, she didn't feel like it and he didn't push her—he never pushed her. He laid his left hand on the gentle curve of one hip, and she laid her own hand on top of his, hearing their rings clink softly against each other, a sort of gentle communion all on its own. Skin to skin, soft, sensual, wonderful—but then the memory of what these others had done to Cam, touching her, skin to skin, and she made a face. "Jesus, Snake Eyes," she whispered into the dark. "I can't imagine how Cam must have felt with her only human contact for three years people who wanted to hurt her. She's incredibly strong to have survived everything."

His fingers curled around hers, a gentle expression of sympathy and love and support, and wrapped in his love, her stomach finally settled enough to let her go to sleep.

Shana managed to keep breakfast down the next morning. Better than Cam, who picked up her spoon twice to take a bite of her oatmeal and then put it down uneaten. She couldn't manage a bite, and she and Shana headed out to Fort Hamilton still quiet. Shana's stomach roiled uncomfortably around her breakfast, and she could tell from Cam's pinched expression that her friend was anxious and apprehensive about the day…as was Shana herself.

The butterflies eased as she settled into the bench at the back of the room where she could keep an eye on the people around her and on the courtroom at large. In front of her she could see Alex's tall, straight frame, clad neatly in a pale-gray impeccably-tailored suit; her nemesis, Lionel Granger was wearing a navy pinstripe today, but he still looked somehow greasy.

"Before we begin, I'll address the witness. You are fully informed of prosecution's agenda for today and there will be no surprises, yes?" Liz looked at Cam, sitting in the witness box.

"No, Your Honor, there won't be any surprises. I've been fully briefed as to what I can expect today." Cam nodded firmly, chin held high—looking braver than she felt, Shana was sure.

Alex picked up exactly where they'd left off the day before. Having seen the videos now, Cam stayed poker-faced and quiet, looking down at her hands as Alex played the various videos; hunting, camping, fishing, hiking, bicycling, riding, and the 'horse' activities. "Mr. Yu had a carefully constructed price list for each activity. According to this ledger," Alex held up the battered little account book, "One day at the cabin was $200 per person. The minimum amount of time one could spend was three days, and there was no maximum. Different activities were worth different prices; hunting, for instance, was $600. If more than one person wanted to come—there were parties of up to seven at a time, although some did come singly—if that person were going to join in the activity, it was an extra $200 for each participant. So if a group of three people wanted to go fishing, the price was $400 for the first person, and $200 for each additional. The average stay for a visitor at the cabin was one week—very few were there for less than one week—and so for each visit Mr. Yu booked to this western new York cabin, he was pretty much guaranteed $1400-$200 a day for 7 days. And then the activities that each client asked for was extra.

"Now if a client got there and decided to add onto their activities list, they were perfectly free to do so provided they paid. A last-minute change would have an extra $100 convenience fee added to the price of the activity. A client would come and indulge in the bicycling, for example; and then discover the horseback riding, and if he wanted to add that to his activities list he paid the $600 fee plus $100 for the privilege. Now, may I remind all of you that this was all under the table, tax free, unreported income. Cam's Aunt and Uncle had some of this money placed at their disposal as wages, for household accounts, for food as Cam's Aunt was the cook and housekeeper.

"Cam herself saw none of it. She was given enough food to keep her alive and in shape for the clients to find appealing, multivitamins to keep her healthy, antibiotics and first-aid supplies when she was hurt, but that was the extent. A lot of money went into soundproofing the cabin, buying and installing the cameras spread out throughout the property to monitor the young victim of this trap. The cabin itself was maintained, and a good deal of money went to purchasing and maintaining the implements used for these games.

"Despite all of those expenses, Mr. Yu still managed to accumulate a tidy sum from this twisted little venture. Knowing that if he lived above his means it would come to the attention of the IRS, he lived modestly, on the surface. An apartment in New York's Chinatown, good clothes but nothing extravagant, a car just within his price range—he was very, very careful to avoid any hint of suspicion. The only area in which he allowed himself to spend his wealth freely was in groceries; he ate lavishly, spared no expense in acquiring whatever he wanted to eat. But as he never got close to anyone at work, nor did he seek out anyone to be particular friends, his culinary excesses remained hidden from the world.

"Still, he couldn't eat all of the profits from his child slavery racket, and so he opened bank accounts in multiple countries all over the world. In four different accounts—one in Brazil, one in Switzerland, one in South Africa, and one in Russia, he stashed more than ten million dollars over the three years that Corporal Arlington remained a prisoner of her Aunt and Uncle. This was in addition to the perks—to satisfy his own lust, he made regular trips to the cabin once or twice a year to ensure that all was going well and his cash cow was continuing to produce. The defense would have you believe that the child porn found in his possession was the extent of his involvement, that he simply procured the clients and kept a few videos as samples of the commodities his guests would enjoy. The prosecution, through the testimony of the girl who lived through this, will prove this was not so. Mr. Yu, in addition to being the one who originally 'broke' Cameron Arlington in, forcing her into different sexual activities in order to acquaint her with her 'job responsibilities' also was a regular visitor to the cabin, paying visits every six months to examine his cash cow and make sure she was still pleasing to his customers.

"The problem was that children grow up. Based on photos of Cameron Arlington, even at fifteen she could have passed for twelve; short, with a slim build that suited her desire to be a dancer, narrow hips and small chest, but as one year passed into two, and two passed into three, not even looking younger was enough to appeal to the clients anymore. Those clients who were somewhat gentler with her because of her perceived youth stopped coming, replaced by older, more brutal clients who were there simply because not even the most jaded, drug-addicted prostitute would agree to what these men wanted to do, because if they did these things to a free woman they would have been looking at jail—or worse. And Mr. Yu welcomed these clients gladly, because in contrast with the clients who had been attracted to and were subsequently gentle with her because of her youth, this new set of clients paid, and paid well, for those acts we've already discussed."

Cam spoke now, her voice soft in the courtroom. "The pain got worse. The clients at first were gentle, and if I screamed and cried that they were hurting me many of them would stop doing what they were doing, unwilling to scar my skin. My Aunt and Uncle would also give me a rest, a couple of days to a week when there were no clients, when I could sit alone in the basement and eat three times a day, I could wash and sleep when I wasn't hurting. But as time went on, I didn't get those rest days, the clients became less and less concerned with scarring me and more and more interested in how they could hurt me. I hated it. I hated it, but I learned early on that whenever I fought, they hurt me more. The only way I could survive was to just do what they wanted me to do, just do what I was told, not to think about what I was doing, not to think, not to speak."

She took a deep breath. "There are…some blank spots in my memory, an impression of days that went by that I don't remember, and the medicine woman of my village, Jennifer Aiennatha, told me that what happened to me was so terrible my mind had to block it out or I would have gone insane, that it was the Goddess's way of being kind. I wonder about those blank spots in my memory sometimes, but I'm…glad…I don't remember whatever it was. I don't think I really want to remember." A shudder that Shana shared; permanent amnesia would have been a godsend for a child tortured as Cam had been tortured.

"But finally the clients started to not come so frequently, and a few came, took one look at my scarred body and left immediately. I was glad I looked ugly, I was glad I no longer looked appealing, and I hoped that meant they'd let me go. But then one night Mr. Yu came, and I heard him talking to my Aunt and Uncle about…selling me…to a guy who made films in which the victim died."

Her voice dropped to a whisper, tears falling silently down her cheeks. "He said that they could make a lot of money. I didn't even have to die; they just had to cover my face to make sure no one could identify me, and they could kill me in a lot of ways; hanging, strangling, drowning, suffocating, and if they timed it right they could bring me back and let me rest and do it all over again. The guy who did these films made as much as fifteen thousand dollars off every film made; each time he did one of me they could make as much as five thousand dollars apiece. My Aunt and Uncle wanted a sample, so they brought him in to demonstrate what he could do.

"He used the fishing equipment to drown me. I blacked out underwater, thought I was going to die, and woke up face-down on the pier choking water out of my lungs. He strapped me to my bed and electrocuted me until I passed out—with the current tightening my chest, I screamed until I had no air left in my lungs and passed out. He took me outside on a 'camping' trip, hung me in a tree by a rope around my neck until I strangled—then brought me back. I begged with them the last time to please don't wake me up, to please let me go, but they just laughed, and weeks later I found out from listening to my Aunt and Uncle that they had made five thousand dollars off each of the sample films he'd made, and that he had told them I was one of the most popular subjects he'd ever had—he made twenty thousand dollars off each time I 'died' and he was getting requests to see me die in different ways.

"I screamed at my Aunt and Uncle—the only time I'd ever done so since they'd first locked me in the basement. I cursed at them, hoping to make them so angry with me that they'd kill me. When that failed I went to my knees in front of them and begged them to please kill me before he came again, and when they just laughed and locked me up again, I told myself that I would kill myself before he ever touched me again."

Antonin Jelescu! Shana remembered Cam's reaction to that name. That _was what Cam meant when she'd said she was terrified of him, that she would kill herself before she let him touch her again. _Shana didn't blame her; knowing how helpless she felt on Kennedy's island, how much pain and anguish and hopelessness and despair, and she remembered thinking maybe they would be better off dead. _I understand. Oh, Cam, I understand, I'm so sorry! _Her stomach knotted up again and she felt that urge to throw up again. _No child should ever have t go through this. No one. And she's going to have to testify against this monster. I'll ask Alex when that trial is so I can talk Clayton into letting a handful of us go. That trial will be easier on her if she has a lot of moral support._


	7. Chapter 36: Cross-Exam

**Chapter 36: Cross-Exam**

Lionel Granger rose, and Shana tensed. She had no idea why they were going through with this farce of a trial, Yu was plainly guilty, and if he'd been a decent human being he'd have just admitted he was guilty and taken his punishment instead of dragging this out, forcing Cam to relive the horror of what he'd done to her, what he'd allowed to be done to her. "I'm very sorry for what happened to you, Ms. Arlington," he said, "I understand that you believe what happened to you is true, but I want to make absolutely sure beyond reasonable doubt that your perceptions of what happened are indeed genuine. First, you say that Mr. Yu 'broke you in, is that correct?"

"Yes." Cam watched him warily.

"And yet, when you spoke earlier, you said that your Uncle had been the one who raped you fist, took your virginity and introduced you to sex. He was the one who got you through that first time."

"Breaking in isn't just 'getting me through the first time'. It's teaching me how to…to use…my…mouth and…and other parts." Cam was blushing furiously, eyes downcast, plainly humiliated by this line of questioning.

"Could you define 'other parts'?"

Shana's head snapped up indignantly. There was no need to make Cam explain that, it was only too obvious!

"Objection!" Alex shot to her feet.

Liz eyed Granger sternly. "Objection sustained, Madam Prosecutor. Mr. Granger, I seriously doubt that any further detail relevant to the case will be gained by forcing the witness to recount in excruciating detail exactly what was done to her."

"Your Honor. In many of the early videos the prosecution released to the defense as part of the discovery process, Cameron Arlington was kept hooded and/or blindfolded. According to written testimony provided by Ms. Arlington herself—"

"Objection, your Honor," Alex interrupted again. "As Corporal Arlington is an active, serving member of the US military, she should be referred to as Corporal Arlington, instead of the civilian honorific Ms."

There was a long moment while Liz considered that, and Shana, sitting in the back of the courtroom, held her breath. Technically Alex was correct; Cam, as ranking military currently serving in the US Armed Forces, was entitled to the proper use of her rank by both civilian and military authorities. While it was not required that she be addressed by her rank, it would be a sign of respect…and it would also serve to remind the jurors and the spectators, at every turn, that Cam had volunteered to serve her country. Respect for the military ran deep in the American psyche and it would help the jury's impression of Cam as a reliable witness.

Apparently the judge thought so too, but she obviously couldn't appear to show favoritism. Abruptly she turned to Cam. "If the witness would please state her preference as to how she will be addressed, the court will make note."

"Corporal Arlington, Your Honor, thank you."

Judge Donnelly rapped her gavel. "So noted. Ladies and gentlemen, officers of this court, you will henceforth refer to the witness as Corporal Arlington. Now, Mr. Granger, as regards your line of questioning, no, the witness will not recount her experiences in excruciating detail. The court understands that some detail is needed to paint an exact picture but what you are asking is unnecessary. Move it along."

Granger had to backpedal for a moment, hemming as he tried to regroup. "All right, _Corporal_," and he stressed the rank title in such a way that it was immediately evident that he was disrespecting the title. Alex didn't object, and although Judge Donnelly glared daggers at him, she didn't object either. Cam drew herself up, spine straight, and looked him right in the eye, appearing calm and poised as he delivered his next question. "As the videos all taken in the early part of your captivity by your Aunt and Uncle constantly hooded and /or blindfolded, how did you know it was my client molesting you and not your uncle?"

"I didn't spend all of my time blindfolded," Cam started, but Granger interrupted her.

"That wasn't what I asked, Corporal. I asked how you knew it was my client molesting you? Did you see his face when the hood came off? Did your Aunt and Uncle ever take the hood off?"

"Yes, they did."

"And did you then see my client?"

Reluctantly, Cam said "No. During the early part of my captivity I never saw his face."

"Then how did you know it was my client?" Granger's voice was oily with triumph.

"Because… he…he…" She was stammering, stuttering, clearly thrown off balance by this line of questioning. "I…"

"You never did see his face. So you didn't know it was indeed my client. I understand, Corporal, that you suffer from CPTSD, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is that correct?"

"Y...yes."

"Which means that as you suffer from a mental disorder, your credibility is already damaged."

"Objection!" Alex shot to her feet again. "Corporal Arlington's CPTSD is limited to places and situations that remind her of her ordeal. It does not, in any way, affect her everyday work, situational awareness, or event recognition. If it did she would not be an active member of the US Army."

"I would beg to differ. Not that long ago Corporal Arlington was involved in a court case involving another member of the US military testifying against a rather prominent international finance banker, Damien Kennedy. And if I remember correctly, she hid her CPTSD from everyone until a simple training exercise connected with her military service provoked an incident and her mental disorder was discovered." He looked at Alex. "Prosecution was, if I remember correctly, second chair at that Federal trial."

"it is true that her CPTSD was discovered during the course of that training exercise, but I would hardly call SERE training 'simple' and in fact it has been a subject of some controversy in the popular media. While I myself have never gone through it, I understand it to be an extreme test of a soldier's ability to evade capture and, if captured, how to defeat enemy exploitation tactics. I am acquainted with some of the details of the training incident, but as it is a military matter I am not sure how much I can bring up without compromising non-disclosure and military confidentiality agreements."

Shana couldn't stand it anymore, she stood up in the back of the courtroom, edged out of the bench she was sitting in, and stepped out into the aisle, coming forward and stopping just short of the courtroom floor. "Master Sergeant Shana O'Hara, Your Honor, I am Corporal Arlington's superior officer," she saluted smartly. "The details surrounding the training incident are not classified, but they are sensitive. However, in the interests of justice, I can answer some questions about it if the court so chooses."

"Objection, this witness was not on the list and should not be allowed to testify, as this military matter is not part of the case set before the court!" Lionel Granger's voice cut through the quiet whispers rolling through the courtroom. Shana's stomach flipped, but she schooled her expression and remained in parade attention stance, spine straight, eyes fixed on the judge.

"Mr. Granger, you were the one who brought up this military matter, and while ordinarily I would agree that it is not relevant to the actual case, as you have indicated through your line of questioning that it leads to the witness's credibility and reliability, I will allow it," Liz said crisply. "You have only yourself to blame, Mr. Granger, if you open a door and the prosecutor walks through it." She nodded to Shana. "Master Sergeant, if you would."

The heels of Shana's dress pumps clicked on the polished floor as she headed up to the witness box, stopping to salute in response to Cam's salute as the younger woman relinquished the witness seat, taking a seat behind Alex at the prosecution table. Shana blessed the impulse that had her dress in her class B skirt uniform that day, and that she'd put her hair up in a tight, decorous bun. She regretted that she didn't have her dress cover, nor was she wearing any rank and insignia indicators, but that was hardly something she could remedy now, and she put the thought out of her mind as she was duly sworn in and the court reporter recorded her oath.

"Now. Master Sergeant," Alex was poker-faced, "We'll try not to take up too much of your time. Please tell the court whatever relevant facts you can about the discovery of Corporal Arlington's CPTSD."

"Corporal Arlington was taking part in a training exercise called SERE, which is a military acronym for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. In brief, this is supposed to teach the soldier what to do if they are separated from their unit in a combat situation, teaching them how to find food, evade capture, and if captured, how to resist interrogation and exploit escape routes to eventually rejoin their unit. Corporal Arlington was being photographed as part of the course when it triggered a flashback to the ordeal she suffered as a teen."

"And she has been in mental counseling since then?"

Shana had to choose her words carefully—she really couldn't go into more detail. "As soon as command personnel was made aware of the situation, she commenced counseling and treatment."

"An answer that neatly sidesteps the question. Did she commence counseling when her CPTSD was discovered?" Damn it, the man was smart. Slimy, but smart.

But Shana was smarter. "They were in the middle of a field exercise, _Mr_. Granger," she said sharply, emphasizing the 'Mr.' to make it clear to him that she was the one in charge here. "It was impossible to get her mental counseling in the field. As soon as command personnel were made aware of the problem she commenced counseling." She still remembered, vividly, Cam crying on the floor in the middle of Doc's infirmary, her voice that of a child, high-pitched, lost and alone. Her stomach clenched, and she sternly ordered it to behave. Not only could she not divulge any of the details of SERE training, but she also had no intention of revealing to the court that Cam had been raped on a military base—their base, under her eye. Even if it had been an unforeseen conspiracy between Broadview and Walker, it still smarted that it happened on her watch—she still felt responsible. Cam was her subordinate…and her friend.

"And as her superior officer, would you say that she is competent to perform the responsibilities of her rank and posting?"

"Absolutely. Corporal Cameron Arlington is one of the most capable soldiers I have ever met. Courageous, loyal, selfless to a fault, she pushes herself to excel in everything she does, she doesn't back down in a fight, and I would not hesitate to place my life in her hands."

"Would that drive to excel be considered a side-effect of her CPTSD? Couldn't that be her trying to overcompensate for her perceived helplessness during the time she allegedly spent as a captive of her Aunt and Uncle?"

This was a tricky one, since Shana herself had discussed it with Allie on a couple of occasions, but fortunately it was an easy one to answer, as they'd figured this out while Cam was at the reservation during Thanksgiving. "First off, there's no 'alleged' when it comes to her Aunt and Uncle's exploitation, The proof is right there in the ledger," and Alex obligingly held it up. "Secondly, while some of her drive to exceed expectations may be a side-effect of her experiences, she had that drive prior to that ordeal. You remember that she was in training to become a dancer—that is not an easy profession, and requires a lot of hard work, sacrifice, and proves she is intensely competitive and driven. And we are all the sum of our experiences—growing up poor drives many to succeed in business, and I fail to see how that is a bad thing. If feeling helpless drove Cam Arlington to excel in the military so she would never feel helpless again, don't we usually call that self-empowerment?"

An appreciative murmur ran through the gallery. "And besides that, her experiences have shaped her into an intensely empathetic, giving, caring individual. Having experienced exploitation in the worst form you could ever imagine, she volunteered to pick up a gun and go to war for her country for the purpose of spreading democracy, freedom, and giving others a way out of their own personal hell. Instead of succumbing to her own internal demons, she's risen above them and now dedicates her life to helping others. I would say, in answer to your question, that yes, her CPTSD has affected her afterwards, but it has affected her positively, not negatively."

"Thank you, Master Sergeant, I believe we've settled that point," and Liz smiled at Shana. "Thank you for your time. Now, if Corporal Arlington would come back up, Mr. Granger can complete her cross-exam?" Shana went back to her seat, stopping to salute Cam, poker faced but with her eyes twinkling at the warmth in Cam's eyes. They didn't smile, didn't speak; they didn't need to. Nothing needed to be said.

"So, Corporal. Your commanding officer says this hasn't affected you in any way that wasn't positive. Would you say that was so?"

"Objection, calls for speculation." Alex stood up yet again. Shana was beginning to understand how she'd gotten those long legs Ettienne loved so much. "Your Honor, I would ask where Mr. Granger is going with this, if there is a point to this line of questioning. His original question was to establish if she had ever seen his client's face during her captivity, and instead he's going off on a tangent about her mental state!"

"Agreed. Mr. Granger, if you have a point, get to it." Liz's tone was frosty.

"My point, Your Honor, is whether her disturbed mental state could have caused her to misidentify my client as a molester. My client had no idea that she was being held against her will, or he would never have agreed to arranging for clients to come to the cabin. My client believed that she was there of her own free will, a willing prostitute in a role-playing fantasy, and procuring people who compensated her for her services is about equal to finding a john for a prostitute. Hardly the kind of offense that leads to a life sentence, as my client looks at here." His tone was scoffing and dismissive.

"Objection!" Alex was flushed pink as she jumped to her feet so fast her chair almost crashed into the bench behind her. "The defense will not refer to Corporal Arlington as a prostitute!"

"But that is what she was," Granger argued. "She participated in the games my client's clients wanted to play, and she lived in the cabin and ate the food paid for with that money, so in effect she was a prostitute enjoying the fruits of her service. Not once did she ever tell my client, even in the beginning, that she was not doing this willingly."

Shana froze even as Alex turned to him, and by the sudden tenseness in her shoulders Shana knew that Alex had caught exactly what Shana herself had just caught. "'Even in the beginning'," Alex said, each word like a small hailstones in the suddenly silent courtroom. "Is that what you just said, Mr. Granger? 'Even in the beginning'? Which means your client was indeed there at the start of Corporal Arlington's ordeal." She turned to Cam without missing a beat. "Corporal, I realize that this may not be something you want to discuss, but earlier, when the defense asked you how you know…did you know Leo Yu was there during your 'breaking in'?"

A long silence, then a tiny whisper. "Yes."

"And how did you know?"

Another long silence, and Shana was just starting to sweat when Cam spoke, low, timid, unable to look up and meet anyone's eyes. But her words were clear. "Mr. Yu…has a…deformity…on his…in his…" She stopped, tried again. "On his…his…" a hard swallow, "…t-t-testicles. The right one's…got a...a sort of…of…mole..on the…the back of…the bottom. I could…feel it…when he…when he…made me…use …my mouth."

Silence in the courtroom, so profound that you could have heard a pin drop. Liz Donnelly finally broke the heavy silence. "The court orders an examination of the defendant by the NYPD's Medical Examiner to determine if this…feature…is indeed present. If it is then a photo will be taken and entered into evidence. This examination will take place this afternoon—if there is such a mark, the court does not want the defendant to harm himself in attempting to remove the evidence. Court will adjourn for the day to allow for this exam and we will reconvene tomorrow at nine AM." She tapped her gavel and was out of her chair and inside the judges' chambers before Shana even had a chance to get out of her seat.


	8. Chapter 37: Evidence

**Chapter 37: Evidence**

"And who is this?" Melinda Warner was brisk and no-nonsense as she watched Alex walk in, with John Munch and a short Asian man with his hands cuffed behind him, and Lionel Granger followed behind.

Alex folded her arms as she came to a stop beside Melinda's exam table. "This is Leo Yu. Currently being tried for charges of child porn, child endangerment, child prostitution, procurement, and the only reason I can't charge him with child rape is because Corporal Cameron Arlington admittedly never saw his face. However, she described a mole on his left testicle which she felt when he forced her to perform orally, and the judge ordered a physical examination to confirm this mark is where she says it is."

"Corporal, hmm?" Melinda didn't say anything else, but her smile disappeared. Alex knew Melinda remembered being called out of her house on Staten Island in the middle of the night, the night that Cam had been raped by Walker at base. Cam had flashbacked to her ordeal at Yu's hands, and Doc had been unable to treat her due to her fear of men. Liv had run to Melinda, and Melinda had been able to comfort her and treat her, and perform the exam and diagnosis so that Walker could be charged with raping Cam.

Alex knew full well that Melinda remembered, but neither one mentioned it; Melinda was the most competent ME they had, and if this mole was where Cam had said it was, Melinda would be able to find it; however, if they let it be known that Melinda knew Cam, it could be used against the prosecution later. Neither woman had any intention of letting that happen.

"All right, Mr. Yu, if you could remove your clothing from the waist down, we'll commence with the physical inspection." Melinda was cool and professional as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves.

"I…wait. Don't I get some privacy?"

"Like you gave a fifteen year old girl privacy? Taking pictures of people hurting her, raping her, profiting off her pain and humiliation? What's the matter, you don't like people looking at you, taking pictures of you? Can't take your own medicine?" John Munch growled.

Lionel Granger started to open his mouth, but Alex spoke, drowning him out. "Sergeant Munch." John subsided, glowering, and Alex turned to Yu. "No, Mr. Yu, you do not get privacy for this exam. The mole has to be documented and your attorney needs to be present to protect your rights, while I need to be here to ensure that protocol is followed and you are not given an opportunity to make this identifying mark disappear." His sudden pallor showed that he had indeed probably been thinking of just that—which also indicated to Alex that the mole Cam had spoken of did indeed exist, and he hadn't, once, thought she'd noticed, or that she would remember.

Alex knew better. After years of working with rape victims, she'd realized that sometimes while their memory of their rapists' faces could be fuzzy, sometimes they could make identifications based on physical characteristics and other features. Sometimes the tiniest features, the most insignificant-seeming details could be used to identify a perp. And now that she thought of it…Ritchie Curry, one of the more brutal 'clients' Yu had 'procured' to rent Cam, had stressed to his lawyer, and thus to her, that she'd always been blindfolded—he didn't like seeing girls cry so there had never been a time when she wasn't blindfolded, and that had been backed up by the films that had been found in his private safe—she would have to ask Cam if there was a way she could identify Ritchie Curry without having seen his face.

Meanwhile, Yu had reluctantly unbuckled his belt and removed his pants, then dropped his boxers. Melinda crouched before him, a lighted scope in her hand, doing a detailed inspection of his privates. Maybe too detailed? He was plainly uncomfortable, face red, constantly shifting his weight from foot to foot, unable to meet the eyes of Lionel Granger, John Munch, Melinda, or even Alex herself. John, apparently, had decided he was going to make Yu as uncomfortable as possible—if his eyes had been lasers, Yu would have been a melting puddle of goo by now. His stare was fixed on the man, which was plainly making Yu even more uncomfortable.

"There is a distinguishing mark on the posterior surface," Melinda pronounced calmly as she straightened up. "However, I am unable to photograph it from this angle. I will need Mr. Yu to turn and face the table, then bend until his torso is parallel to the floor."

Lionel Granger protested. "If it cannot be seen or found with a casual examination, then it could not be admissible as evidence. My client has rights too!"

"Your client should have thought of this before he forced a vulnerable fifteen year old girl into child sex slavery!" Alex reminded him sharply. "With Corporal Arlington's testimony of the acts into which she was forced in order for this mark to be found, a casual exam wouldn't reveal the proof to back up her story, given that what he did to her was definitely not 'casual'!"

"Turn around please," Melinda's voice was ice and iron, and Yu had no choice but to obey.

Alex didn't even try to hide the fact that she was looking; Lionel Granger turned his back, looking irritated. But plainly on the rear of the right one was a small protruding brown mole, maybe about the size of a small pea. Wouldn't have been enough to cause physical discomfort, hence he'd never had it removed, but if someone had been told to perform on the person in question, that mole would definitely have been felt. Cam had been right.

Melinda made no comment, simply grabbed a Polaroid camera and snapped a couple of pictures. Using flash, she illuminated the feature so that not even the most short-sighted juror could miss seeing it, then grabbed a digital camera and took a couple of pictures using that. "I'll send you the pictures electronically," she said to Alex, "but in the meantime you can take these Polaroids with you as evidence. When I send the digital photos I'll also send them with my signed affidavit."

Alex nodded crisply as she took the photos, not looking at them; she didn't want to see more of his anatomy than she really needed to. She was already disgusted and horrified at what she'd already seen. Not that she was a prude—despite her ordeal in the Congo at Zimurinda's hands, or maybe because of it, she and Ettienne had a very healthy sex life, both of them enjoying each others' bodies to the fullest. The thought of this man taking something that should have been pleasurable and enjoyable and completely consensual and forcing a vulnerable young child to do these things…Alex couldn't think about it, didn't want to think about it. "I will see you in court tomorrow, Mr. Yu," she said acidly as Yu pulled up his pants, buckled his belt, and submitted to John Munch's just-this-side-of-legal manhandling of his arm. "Perhaps, Mr. Granger, you could convince your client to simply admit his guilt and accept a plea deal, as much for his own sake as it is for his victim. Forcing her to testify against him is not going to encourage the jury's sympathy."

Melinda waited to speak to Alex until Munch had left with Granger and Yu. "So that's the son of a bitch who ruined Cam Arlington's life?"

"Yes," Alex bit out, and she gave Melinda the story of the day. By the time she was done Melinda was shaking her head. "That poor girl. I knew she was badly traumatized the first time I laid eyes on her but I had no idea what happened to her was this bad. It's a miracle she's as well-adjusted as she is. She's a very strong person."

"She is. We managed to make cases for thirty-one of the names found in Cam's aunt and Uncle's ledger who were also found in Yu's client files, and I'm trying to try as many of them together as possible, but it's still going to mean about nine or ten trials that she's going to have to testify in, and I know she's dreading having to tell these same horrible stories to ten different juries, ten different courtrooms full of people, and while I don't blame her at all, she did promise to me that she would testify and I will hold her to that promise, if only just because I know she'll feel better after they're all locked up."

"Don't get overconfident, Alex. This is incredibly hard on her, and you don't know the half of what's been done to her. When I examined her, after the rape—I have more experience with traumatized female bodies than your base doctor does, though that's hardly his fault—and there were a few things that I tried to get her to explain but she was evasive about. There's a lot more that she isn't telling any of us, and I have a feeling that when it does come out, it's going to be emotionally devastating."

"Evasive about…what?"

Melinda looked at Alex thoughtfully, then blew out her breath. "She has no ovaries. There is scar tissue in the soft tissue of her pelvis that indicate she had them once, but…they aren't there anymore. She wouldn't tell me what happened, evaded every attempt to bring up the subject. Part of it is because I think whatever happened was beyond traumatizing—and I think it hurts emotionally because she always wanted to have kids and now never can. And now that she has a husband, someone she loves, her infertility hurts even more."

"Jesus." Alex couldn't think of anything to say. "You know, Shana's her best friend—I think if I told her she could find out."

"Shana? That redhead from the base?" At Alex's nod, Melinda chuckled. "Yes, I'll bet she's good at finding out things. I'll just bet." She sobered. "Can I give you some advice?"

"Sure. What?"

"Ask George Huang to sit in the courtroom during these trials, if possible. He'll be able to tell you if she's had enough, if you need to call a recess, indicate to you when she's hiding something. And if you can manage it—you have three medical officers at your base, perhaps they could take turns sitting in on the trials too. Having someone there who knows physiology and someone who knows psychology will help you gauge when she's had enough and if she's going to snap."

"I'll see what I can arrange."

Shana parked the car—Alex had offered them the use of her Mustang and gone to the ME's office with John Munch—and looked at her passenger. "Are you ready?"

Cam was sitting in the passenger seat, looking edgy and nervous. "I guess," she said. "Shana, what if I was wrong? What if he wasn't the one with the mole? What if my memory was wrong and it was someone else—"

"And that many 'what if's' is going to make you even more apprehensive," Shana sighed as she looked at Cam, now chewing on her lower lip. "Come on. Let's take your mind off what Alex is doing. Doc went to a lot of trouble to arrange this late appointment, and we're lucky she agreed to see you the same day he called. I wonder what he said to get you in the door, but I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Let's go before we're late, Dr. Flowers decides we're not coming, and we miss out on this."

At four-thirty in the afternoon the clinic was practically deserted, it being after closing time. They were standing uncertainly in the lobby, looking at the empty receptionist's chair, when a woman came striding down the hall. "I'm Dr. Allison Flowers," she said by way of introduction. She was black, but her skin was a very light coffee with cream color, and her mid-length springy auburn curls were confined in a headband. "You must be Corporal Arlington and Master Sergeant O'Hara. Ed told me you were coming," she said to their confused looks.

"Ed?" Shana echoed.

"We were in medical school together. I just chose a different path than he did. Come on in the back, this is a private consultation done as a favor. I wanted to see what he was talking about first before I committed to anything, so this is informal and off the books for now."

Her calm geniality and matter-of-fact manner helped calm Cam down, and when Cam slowly took off her clothes from the waist up, bracing herself for a comment, she was pleasantly surprised and gratified when Dr. Flowers did nothing but look calmly detached; no empty comments about 'I'm sorry this happened to you' as Cam had been expecting. "So the original trauma was fire?" she said, pulling on a pair of exam gloves and touching the middle of Cam's back.

"Um. Not exactly." Cam's voice sounded strained. "There was some…scarring…due to cuts and small burns before the big fire took most of the skin."

Dr. Flowers nodded. "There's quite a lot of scar tissue here. Ed gave me to understand that at the time this happened, there was no treatment done in a burn unit, what I'm seeing is natural healing using homeopathic remedies?"

"The medicine woman of my tribe did the best she could," Cam said, slightly defensively. "If I'd known then what I know now I wouldn't have fought so hard not to go to the hospital, but what's done is done and I can't change it."

"She did a very good job on the fire trauma, considering," Allison said. "And I see Ed did what he could to keep mobility after the secondary trauma occurred, the Kennedy trial earlier this year. There is some warping of the joint and limited mobility in the muscle here." She carefully touched a part of Cam's scar tissue just under her shoulder blades. "I need to see if the scar tissue goes into the muscle and causes the muscles to warp, or if it's all surface damage. I need to touch this, right here, but I want you to let me know if what I'm doing hurts, okay?"

Cam gritted her teeth and nodded. Allison placed her fingers lightly at the base of Cam's spine, then inched them up, stopping when she got between Cam's shoulder blades, then inched them along the right side of her shoulder until she got just below the higher shoulderblade. That was when Cam made a soft, inarticulate sound, and she stopped. "Did that hurt?"

"Sort of. A little."

Shana, however, had seen Cam's face. "Cam. She's a doctor. She has to know where it hurts and how much. Be honest, okay? I know hiding how much you hurt is routine for you, and the whole 'grin and bear it' routine is part of military culture, but you can't do that here, so be honest."

"On a scale of one to ten, ten being the pain you suffered when the fire took your skin, how bad was what I just did?" Dr. Flowers asked.

"Um, like, a five, maybe," Cam said. "And it wasn't pain, it felt like…pressing on a sore or bruised muscle."

Dr. Flowers moved her fingers to a different part of Cam's back. "How does this feel?"

"The same. Like the muscle's sore and bruised."

She made a sound of satisfaction and stepped back. "So the scarring doesn't extend to the muscle below the skin, it's just on the surface. Good. Now, I 'd like to know what kind of result you're hoping to get out of this. If you think we can make you look like you did before all of this happened, I'll have to tell you it's not going to be possible."

"I just want to be able to get full range of movement back in my arms, so I can get back on active duty, maybe so I can dance again," Cam said. "I understand you can't make them all go away."

"I think we can do a bit more than just give you movement back. That, by the way, would be the easy, simple part—an incision right along the bottom of your shoulder blade here where I touched, placement of about an inch of skin graft between the edges of the split, and then a couple weeks of waiting until the edges of the graft and the edge of the scar tissue heals will suffice for that. As for the rest-I'll want to take some pictures and do a soft tissue scan, but we could get some good results with laser surgery. I'll take a subcutaneous sample of skin cells from elsewhere on your body and inject them in various areas under the scar tissue, then focus a laser on your back—it will stimulate the skin cells we just injected to multiply under the scar tissue, and placing a dressing over the scar tissue will keep the scar tissue from coming off until the new skin cells under it have had a chance to grow and become thick enough that the scar tissue won't be needed anymore. When we remove the dressing the dead scar tissue should come right off and leave new, whole skin behind. It will still be weaker around the edges of the wound and I can't say for certain that there won't be a color difference—it'll still be hypopigmented—but you're going to be able to move and stretch and dance like normal when we're done, and you'll be able to thermoregulate somewhat better, too. And there may also be repigmentation procedures that can 'stain' the hew skin to a more normal shade so they don't stand out as much. I'll want to see what you look like after the laser surgery before I determine that—if the color difference is not that radical it may even itself out."


	9. Chapter 38: Accusation

**Chapter 38: Accusation**

Shana was full of bouncing enthusiasm as they left the office. "So you'll get mobility back and a more normal appearance. You gotta be happy about that."

"I am," Cam was smiling, but it was a tired smile. "I couldn't…I couldn't believe it when she told me. I'm just…tired." And she looked it, lines around her eyes and the corners of her mouth, looking slightly pale.

Shana's cell phone buzzed as they were getting into Alex's Mustang, and she paused for a moment after she buckled her seatbelt to check it. "It's a text from Alex," she said, and at that Cam got even paler. There was tense silence for a couple seconds, then Shana whooped happily. "The medical examiner found the mole. It was right where you said it was, Alex has photos and the ME's going to send over a signed affidavit so they can enter it in as evidence."

"I was right? They found it? It was actually there?"

Shana snapped out of her own happiness and looked at Cam. "Did you think you weren't right? Did you think you'd made a mistake? Were you not sure? If you weren't sure, if you guessed, Cam, the defense could pick that apart and we should let Alex know now."

"No. No I was always certain the one with the mole was Mr. Yu. I just…" she sighed. "I just wasn't really sure."

"It's not that you weren't sure, Cam, you were. You just didn't trust your instincts, because they'd played mind games with you for so long and you were in too much pain, so you didn't know how to trust yourself." Shana looked seriously at her. "You have very good instincts, Cam, better than a lot of people, so while I know it's hard, please try not to doubt yourself—if you're not sure, come to me."

"You're not always going to be there, Shana."

Shana stared at her. "You're serious? You'd say that after everything we've gone through? I am going to be your friend for the rest of your life, Cameron Arlington, hell, I owe you my life!"

"I know, but…eventually we'll muster out of the military, Shana. And you and Snake eyes have your home out in California, and I have mine on the reservation, and we'll hardly ever see each other again."

"Doesn't mean we can't stay in touch, and doesn't mean we'll never come for a visit. Not to mention which, as an O'Hara, you have to come to Atlanta to see Dad once in a while and get more lessons in Irish dancing." Shana laughed as they swung onto the Verrazano Narrows Bridge going home—Alex was staying at Liv's apartment tonight. "No, Cam, trust me, you'll never see the last of me. You're stuck with me for the rest of your life. Not to mention which, our boys—your Charlie and my Snake Eyes—are friends too and we'll have to see each other if only just to get our big kids together for some guy fun."

They parked in the garage bay, and the first thing Shana saw was Charlie and Snake Eyes waiting for them. "Court let out early to look for new evidence and, Doc called to let us know he got Cam an appointment this afternoon for a scar treatment specialist. We went to see her. Oh, and…good news…she said she can give Cam back her mobility, and with laser surgery they can grow new skin under the scar tissue and it'll let her thermoregulate. They can also add pigmentation to her skin and make her look a bit more like what she used to look like!" Shana was grinning ear-to-ear as Cam threw her arms around Charlie.

"That's wonderful news, sweetheart," Charlie's smile was warm as he looked at her, but his eyes were serious. "I want you to know, though, that if it really is painful I don't want you to feel like you have to go through with it, just because you think that I would like it. I don't want you to do anything you personally don't want to do; I love you, your heart, your soul; what you look like isn't an important part of how I see you."

"But it is an important part of how I see me," Cam murmured, her face buried in his broad chest. "You're so handsome, Charlie, and I'm so plain, and I know what I used to look like and you'd have loved to have that. All of the clients who came to see me in the beginning told me I had a nice body, and I wish I could give you that. The one person who I really want to look good for is too late to see how nice I used to look."

Charlie held her out at arm's length. "Cam, you were fifteen when those monsters told you that you had a nice body. If I saw you back them I wouldn't have thought you did; I would have been horrified and repulsed because you were too young, too young and too afraid and there should have been no discussions about your body at that age. I love you right now, just the way you are, and while I mourn the sacrifice of your body to get where you are today, if you hadn't you wouldn't be here with me. So no, I don't regret not seeing you the way you were. I only wish you could see yourself the way I see you."

The mess bell rang, and Shana grinned suddenly. "Snake Eyes, Charlie, you both go on ahead. Cam, come with me."

She led Cam to hers and Snake Eyes' room, then pointed to the chair. "Have a seat." She pulled open her night table drawer and took out a small object, coming back. "Hold out your hand."

Cam stared stupefied at the small box sitting on her palm. "What's this?"

Shana sat on the bed opposite her, holding another box. "Open it, Cam. I got it for your birthday, but I decided on the way home to give it to you a bit early."

"My birthday?" Cam still looked stupefied.

"Yes. Your birthday. Which is next week, in case you forgot. But I want to give this to you early." Shana nodded to the box. "Come on. Open it."

Cam opened it. Inside, nestled on a bed of cotton was a plain silver band with two words inscribed on it. "'Anam cara'," she read.

"It means 'soul friend' in Gaelic. Because you're a closer friend than many, and closer to me than my own sister, and I wanted you to have it—and this," she opened her own box and showed her an identical ring, "…is mine. We have matching rings so that you'll always know you have a friend on your side, no matter what happens. You'll never, ever be alone. This job, these people, they'll come and go, but you'll always have Charlie and you'll always have me. And Snake Eyes, too, since he's always going to be with me."

She was reminded of those words the next day as Cam sat in the witness box twisting the new ring around her finger, watching nervously as Alex handed a small Polaroid to Judge Donnelly. The judge was poker-faced as she looked at it, then handed it back with no comment other than to say "enter this as evidence," but her tone was one of disgust and anger.

Lionel Granger stood up next and approached the stand. "Now, Corporal Arlington. You apparently endured this captivity for three years, what finally gave you your liberty? My client found out from the papers that the mountain cabin had burned down, that two bodies were discovered in the rubble. The bodies were later identified as my client's sister and brother in law, but there was no mention of you."

"I was in the cabin when it burned," Cam said. "I remember the place falling down around me, and when I next woke up, I found a mattress had fallen partially on top of me, and kept me from burning completely up or being crushed by debris. I was still badly burned, and the pain was…horrible..I kind of remember getting up and just staggering off—I didn't see my aunt or Uncle but all I wanted to do was escape, to get away so they…they couldn't hurt me…again. I wandered for a while—I don't know how long—and finally crossed paths with an Iroquois brave from the Seneca tribe. He took me to their medicine woman, who took care of me until I was well and offered me an opportunity to join the tribe."

"And you never reported the fire, never alerted authorities? If you were indeed held captive, letting the authorities know would have—should have—been your fist step. Instead you ran away and hid."

"No, I never went to the police. I didn't report it."

"Now, Corporal Arlington, wouldn't you agree that looks suspicious? Did you deliberately not report it because you were, in fact, there willingly and reporting the fire to the authorities would have resulted in charges being levied against you for prostitution?"

Cam stared at him. "No! That's not what happened!"

"So what did happen, Corporal Arlington?"

"I was…very badly burned. Our medicine woman, Jennifer Aiennatha, took me in, kept me at her house for two months. I was delirious, incoherent, couldn't tell her who I was or where I came from, but I did keep telling her I didn't want to go to a hospital. Don't you see, I was terrified of my Aunt and uncle finding me again, terrified that if they did they'd find some other basement to stick me in and force me to do things I didn't want to do again. I didn't want to go back—I would have rather died than go back."

"But that still doesn't answer the question, Corporal Arlington. You didn't report the fire or your captivity to anyone. You kept it a secret, never told anyone. Why has this come to light now, instead of back when it happened?"

"I never, ever intended on telling anyone anything about it, I wanted to forget. I didn't want revenge against the people who'd hurt me, didn't want to testify in court, didn't want to have to go through all of this. But then one of my friends was captured overseas while on a humanitarian mission, sold to human traffickers, and the only way I could see to get her back was to go back into the world of sexual slavery, find her, and get her out. To do this I needed the cooperation of your client, needed to have a cover story that would let me get inserted into the underworld, and so I had to tell the police and prosecutor my story so that they could get leverage over him so I could get what I needed to save my friend."

"And how do we know that you are telling the truth this time? This is not the first time you've come into contact with the Manhattan police; you were briefly removed from your Aunt and Uncle Park's custody back when you were thirteen, when a teacher at your school noticed bruises that you couldn't explain. At that time you had the opportunity to be taken away from them, to be spared the subsequent attempts—alleged by you—to exploit and hurt you. And you did not report it then either."

"No, I didn't, and I have no explanation for why I didn't." Her eyes were filling with tears she tried to scrub away. "You have no idea how often in the years since, I've wondered why I didn't. If I could go back and do it over again, I would have. I don't know why I didn't. I just…I remember that, at that time, I was ashamed, because I'd made my Aunt mad at me and I didn't know what I did wrong to make her mad at me, and I thought I must be stupid, to have done something so bad that she'd hit me and I didn't understand what I did. And I didn't want everyone to think I was that stupid, and I was ashamed and afraid to tell anyone anything. When I broke my legs, and Uncle came into my room every night…I told myself when I got back to school I'd tell my teachers. I look back now and wonder why I didn't just tell the doctor, but at the time Aunt and Uncle never left me alone with anyone, even for a moment, and I just…never felt I could tell anyone."

"So you decided that killing them was your way out?"

A susurrus of sound from the gallery and the even a few sounds from the jury box, to which Lionel Granger held up a sheaf of papers. "I have here the investigation into the fire, your Honor. The authorities determined that there were cans of gasoline in the garage, that the fire started there. But the actual cause of the blaze was undetermined because there was gasoline for the generators doused over all the pieces of what they could determine was the floor of the building. They couldn't figure out how the gasoline got on the floors, so it remained unexplained. Until now." He looked at Cam, sitting ashen-faced in the witness box. "You got the gas cans from the garage and doused the floors with it. You struck the match and started the fire. You murdered your Aunt and Uncle."

"I…I didn't…"

He continued relentlessly. "You were the prostitute. Your aunt and Uncle controlled the money, making sure you didn't have full access to it, so you wouldn't squander it, and in exchange for this kindness, in exchange for their taking you in when you were a homeless orphan, you set the fire that killed them, then ran from the burning house. You made no attempt to help them, to go back and get them out, then, to cover that up, you ran away to the Indian reservation, told them some story to let you stay, and never intended on telling anyone, by your own admission!" Without waiting for her to respond, he turned to Liz Donnelly. "Your Honor, Defense demands that Corporal Cameron Arlington be arrested for murder in the first degree. She deliberately set the fire that killed her Aunt and Uncle, made no attempt at rescue, did not notify authorities, and by her own admission never intended to tell anyone!"

Liz Donelly looked grave. "Prosecutor, is this true? Did your witness set the fire that killed her Aunt and Uncle?"

Shana knew that they couldn't lie in front of the judge, and she felt her stomach clench unpleasantly. _No. Oh God, it wasn't her fault, she had no other way out! They have to realize that, Alex, you have to tell them!_

"Yes, Your Honor, Corporal Arlington did set the fire that burned the cabin and took her Aunt and Uncle's life. But there were extenuating circumstances, she'd been tortured for three years and in fact overheard her Aunt and Uncle talking to the defendant about selling her to a man who makes snuff films—violent porn in which the subject dies. Based on this, any reasoning, thinking human being could see that she was terrified for her life and desperate to escape in any way possible. She did it in self-defense. And she didn't run away—she woke up in the cabin's wreckage, horrifically burned over sixty-five percent of her body, got up delirious with pain, and wandered lost until her tribe took her in and her medicine woman did her best to save the life of the child they'd found." Alex turned to Granger. "Irregardless of the defense's assertion that she was past puberty and therefore it wasn't pedophilia, in the eyes of the law Cameron Arlington, at seventeen when all of this happened, was still a child. Children are incapable of making rational, well-thought out decisions, particularly when they are exploited, brutalized, isolated, starved, and physically and sexually abused. Not to mention brainwashed—prosecution has evidence that Cam's Aunt and Uncle were North Korean, and there is evidence that they interrogated Cameron Arlington about the people, places and command structure of Osan Air force Base, in South Korea. In fact, this is partly why we think they chose to come forward when the military was looking for relatives."

"Wait." Liz held up a hand. "This has gotten a lot more complicated than it has to be. I'm going to ask a few simple questions, here, and I want simple yes and no answers. Corporal Arlington. My I remind you that you are under oath and required to answer questions truthfully. Did you deliberately set the fire?"

"Yes." Cam looked resigned.

"Mr. Yu. When you saw the news that the cabin had burned down, did you notify authorities that your sister and brother in law were in the cabin along with their ward, Cameron Arlington?"

"Well, no, Your Honor, but I didn't know—"

"So no, you did not inform them that there was a child in that cabin. You told no one that Cameron Arlington lived there."

"They came to me and told me that the cabin had burned down with my sister and my brother-in-law in it. They didn't mention Cam Arlington."

"So you didn't mention her either. If your argument is that Corporal Arlington did not report her abuse because she was afraid her secret life as a child prostitute would be revealed, then you too must have been similarly afraid you would be revealed as facilitating child prostitution. And so you didn't report her missing either."

"Objection, Your Honor—" Granger said, but Liz held up a hand.

"Save it, Mr. Granger. If Cam Arlington was covering, then so could Mr. Yu. I am ordering a prima facie hearing on this matter, the purpose being to determine whether Corporal Arlington is indeed guilty of murder or if her actions were truly committed in self-defense. This trial is suspended until a decision is made in the hearing. In the meantime," she leveled hard eyes at Cam and Alex, "The prosecution had a responsibility to make this known to the court and chose to attempt to conceal it. I am charging Prosecution with a contempt of court fine and I hereby order law enforcement to take custody of Corporal Arlington until the evidentiary hearing."


	10. Chapter 39: Procedure

**Chapter 39: Procedure**

Shana was out of her seat almost before the judge's gavel hit the table. She ran up the aisle to Cam's side, where her friend was standing, still pale but composed, waiting as the bailiff sorted out his handcuffs. "We're going to fight this," she said angrily, fairly biting off the words. "There's no way anyone could look at this in any way as not being self-defense—you didn't even intend to survive, you were committing suicide and your Aunt and Uncle just happened to go with you!" tears sprang to her eyes as the bailiff—not ungently—cuffed Cam's hands behind her back, and she watched with stinging eyes and a lump in her throat as he led Cam away.

"How could you let this happen?" she demanded of Alex as the blond lawyer came up behind her. "She's been through so goddamn much…" She swallowed hard, but the tears kept coming. "It's not fair."

"No, it's not, but the judge is being extraordinarily lenient, Shana, treating this as an evidentiary hearing instead of demanding that Cam be arrested for murder. It'll be up to us to prove that she acted in self defense, or that she wasn't in her right mind when she did it."

"An insanity defense?" Shana stared at Alex.

"No, not an insanity defense. More like she was under mental duress and not thinking clearly because of the abuse and exploitation, and she made some bad decisions. I'm also going to hammer home the point that she was seventeen when this happened and I'm going to bring up her physical condition. I may have to release some of the more gruesome photos and videos they took of her."

"I'm sure we can get Doc and the medics to testify as to her medical condition. And we have the records of the psych doctor at Miramar when he was counseling her. We don't have to tell them what she was in for, after all, it's just another military base."

"If you can get those, particularly anything that has old scars, maybe even a date on those scars, that would be helpful. We have plenty of videos and pictures of what was actually done to her to create those feelings of hopelessness, desperation, fear and a need to escape, and I think I have a couple pieces of video that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was terrified for her life when she set that fire. I can also get George Huang to watch videos and give his professional opinion of her state of mind too." Alex sighed as she heaved her briefcase of the table. "Her arraignment will be in the morning, so I advise you go back to base and let Charlie know she's not going to be home tonight."

Shana's stomach clenched at the thought of that conversation.

Her stomach flip-flopped again when she got out of the car and saw Charlie and Snake eyes waiting, as they had every day that week, for Shana and Cam. "C-Cam's not coming home tonight," she swallowed, and to her embarrassment tears spilled down her cheeks as her throat closed. She had to swallow hard to force her words out. "The defense brought up that she set the fire to the cabin that killed her Aunt and Uncle and when she was asked if she had, she had to answer truthfully. So she said yes, and the judge had to order her arrested."

Snake Eyes stared at her, aghast. Charlie simply stood there, looking stunned and lost.

"The judge ordered what Alex called an 'evidentiary hearing' to look at the facts and her motives, and determine if there is sufficient evidence to warrant arresting Cam for murder. So it's not a trial—yet—and if we can convince the judge that Cam acted in self defense, or that she simply wanted it all to stop and tried to commit suicide by staying in the house, and her Aunt and Uncle just happened to die and she didn't. Alex says she has a couple pieces of video that will prove she had ample reason to be in fear for her life, but she wants me to see if we can release some of her psych records from Miramar. And her bail hearing will be tomorrow, although I think she'll end up having to stay longer because as soon as the judge hears about the three million she got as restitution from Kennedy's case, and the ten grand she got from her sale at the Amsterdam market, they'll set the bail so high she'll never be able to meet it."

"No they won't because the three million has been signed over to my parents to build their house on the site of the old cabin. They are going to take what they need to build what they want there, and then sign whatever remains back to Cam, but as of right now, that money is not hers. The only thing she has is her salary as an Army Corporal and the ten thousand from the Amsterdam market, so since bail only requires ten percent down, she'll need a thousand dollars to get out and there will be no problem getting that."

Shana blew out a relieved breath, and she stomach relaxed—slightly. "All right. Let me go see Doc and get her psych records from Miramar from him, as well as something documenting old injuries and scars."

Doc raised his eyebrows at Shana's obvious distress, but listened calmly as she poured out the story of the day in a torrent of words. It took a while before she was finished, as she had to share her indignation over the unfairness of the whole affair, but finally when she stopped for breath he said mildly, "You know the process isn't always fair, Shana, you studied law and took the bar exams yourself."

"Yes, and it's crap like this that kept me from being one!" her own vehemence surprised her, but it was true, after all. "I don't know how Alex does it. Give me something directly in front of me that I can shoot, it's a lot simpler than dancing around the subject with words in a courtroom!"

Doc smiled a little as he started rummaging around in a file drawer. "You always were more of a one for direct action. But Alex is good at what she does, and she does it for a living, so the only thing you or I can do is to give her what she needs to make sure Justice is served."

"I'd feel better about Justice being blind if the guide dogs weren't all lawyers," Shana replied tartly, and Doc threw back his head and laughed.

"That sounds like something you'd say. Glad to see you're still in there."

"What do you mean, I'm still here?" she glared at him suspiciously.

"You've been acting uncharacteristically emotional of late. Just slightly odd, for you. But given what you've been through, and the hormones and the stress of everything that's happened in the last year. I guess I can't blame you."

"Have the hormone levels in my blood eased off yet, or are they still high?"

"You know, I don't know, I haven't had a chance to do those blood tests yet."

"It's not like it's really important right now, anyway," Shana shrugged. "We have to figure out what we can say that will get Cam out of this mess."

"We have to do what we can to ensure Justice is served, not necessarily what gets Cam out of jail," Doc said warningly.

"What's that supposed to mean? I can't believe you're on their side!"

"Shana. I'm a doctor. I'm not on anyone's side. I'm supposed to stay objective, and that's what I'm doing. Cam did premeditate this, Shana, and you know it but you're letting your friendship with her color your perceptions. When she slipped out of the handcuffs it did require conscious thought for her to go to the garage, get the can of gasoline, pour it on the floor and set it on fire, and you know from practicing law that that fits the definition of premeditation."

"So you think she is guilty."

He held up a hand. "I didn't say that. Let me finish, okay? Although she did plan it—she could have just run out the front door, and you know that too—she was under a great deal of mental and physical strain. Her constant exploitation and abuse of the last three years, her physical strain, malnourishment and vitamin and mineral deficiencies which kept her mind from functioning the way it should have—I don't know if she was starving or dehydrated at the time, which factors could well have contributed to her making bad decisions—coupled with the fear inspired when she heard her Aunt and Uncle talking about selling her to someone who would kill her—"

"Anton Jelescu. She said that her Aunt and Uncle brought him up to the cabin and he electrocuted her until she passed out, held her underwater until she passed out, hung her from a tree until she passed out, and filmed the whole thing. Her Aunt and Uncle got five thousand dollars for each one of those 'death' films and Alex said he made twenty thousand dollars off each of those three from people who thought they were seeing someone die, and he talked to her Aunt and Uncle about selling her to him outright so he could do it over and over again."

Doc's face showed an expression of loathing. "But that's good, because now we can make a case of mental impairment and loss of brain cells due to oxygen deprivation and brain damage. So, in answer to your question, while I do admit that she is guilty of premeditation, she is not responsible because she was in an intolerable situation and couldn't think clearly to reach a reasonable conclusion. There are a few things about her medical condition as well, but I want to talk to her before I tell anyone about that. I don't know if she knows—I don't know if she even remembers. She has never said anything and that makes me think the event might have been so traumatic that her mind blocked it out."

"What is it?" Shana demanded, but Doc refused to say.

"I think I'll ask Hawk for some off-base time and attend the evidentiary hearing. Testimony from a medical professional could help."

"And documents from the Miramar psych, too. Alex said she's also going to talk to that FBI psychologist Dr. Huang and see if he can attend."

"Then I think between us we can prove she's not culpable."

Clayton, Shana, Charlie, Snake Eyes, and Doc were sitting in the gallery the next morning, in a closed courtroom. It was them, Alex, and John Munch, and Cam herself, sitting in the witness box looking calm and unruffled but the tight lines around the corners of her mouth and the shadows under her eyes showed she hadn't slept, and maybe it was Shana's imagination, but that dress uniform looked slightly looser on her. _I'll bet she didn't eat anything yesterday. And she can't afford to skip meals, this is too much stress on her, damn it!_ Her heart ached…and her stomach flipped. _Damn it. I have to get something for my stomach throughout this trial; I'm stressing out over this as much as she is, and I'm feeling nauseous all the time. I haven't been eating well, but fortunately it's not showing. I haven't lost any of the weight I gained over our honeymoon._ Although she was spending much of her day sitting here (courtesy of Hawk, who had, just that morning, thrown up his hands and told both her and Charlie that he was taking them off active duty until the trial was over) she was trying to get at least an hour of swordwork in every evening when she got back; partly to get in shape and stay in shape and partly to work off her frustration with the whole painfully slow trial process. _It's been a week since we got back from our honeymoon and already I can see the effects of stress on her. I wish there was a way we can hurry this up._

"Given what we know about the kind of abuse, exploitation, and pain that Cam Arlington endured, there is no doubt in the prosecution's eyes that this was a clear case of actions taken for which the defendant is not responsible," Alex said crisply, her voice hard. "Many of us can't comprehend the abuse she suffered, and the fact that she lived to tell us about it, that she is here today at all, is a miracle.

"The defendant has agreed to allow me to show the court two pieces of evidence that will definitely prove that Cam Arlington was terrified for her life and not in her right mind when she set the fire. Her only thought, when she doused the house with gasoline and set it on fire, was to escape; and given that she had no real idea where she was or that anyone would help her, to her fevered mind the only possible escape was death. After the court sees the two pieces of video I am about to show, we have complete confidence that you, too, will agree that she could not in any way be held culpable for what she did. Now, per the judge's instructions, I have informed the witness that I had these pieces of video and obtained consent from her to play this for the court."

Liz Donnelly held up a hand. "One moment, Madam Prosecutor. Corporal Arlington, did you see these pieces of video and did you give the prosecutor permission to play this in open court?"

Cam nodded, then spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. "Yes, Your Honor."

Liz nodded to Alex, and Alex cued a video up on the TV.

No one on the courtroom could suppress their gasp of horror at what they were seeing.

"What you are seeing," Alex's voice was soft in the horrified silence filling the courtroom, "was the inevitable result of being forced to have unprotected sex. Corporal Arlington had just turned seventeen, and according to her Aunt's journal, she forgot to give Arlington the morning-after pill and Cam got pregnant. In order to try and force a miscarriage, they stopped giving her food and adequate water, tried to starve her into a miscarriage, resulting in the extreme emaciation you see here. However, this was not enough to induce her body to rid itself of the baby voluntarily, so they took the measures you see here—restraining her so she could not escape and beating her stomach until she miscarried. I am not going to show the whole thing, but the end result was that she did indeed have a miscarriage."

Alex turned off that piece of video, then changed the disc and cued this one up. "After that incident, they decided that they didn't want any possibility of this happening again, and so they took permanent steps to ensure it wouldn't. In this next video you'll see an unidentified man—I will not call him a doctor, because doctors are supposed to heal, not hurt, their patients—performing a forced sterilization procedure on an unwilling, clearly terrified, helpless Corporal Arlington—without anesthesia."

The video showed the same room, same bed. Cam was tied tightly with handcuffs and chains to the cot, though she was skeletally thin and it was entirely clear, from the red scar lines across her stomach, that this had taken place after the forced abortion. Her eyes were sunken, her cheeks hollow, her eyes—there was no sense or awareness in them, and it was clear to all the Joes that this was exactly like the state that Shana had been in after she came back from Kennedy's island; a fugue state, in which she was somewhat aware of what was going on around her but not completely. She was whimpering in terror as she saw the doctor hold up a scalpel, but there was no reason, just instinct, in her eyes.

In shocked silence the courtroom watched as the doctor climbed onto the bed, ignored Cam's terrified screaming as he cut into her abdomen; two small incisions on either side of her lower belly, which at first mystified the watching court until they saw him reach in and pull something from her abdominal cavity from each of those locations. And it hit them all in the same moment, what those two small lumps had to be.

Shana lunged for the nearest wastebasket, which happened to be next to Alex's table, and vomited into it. Snake Eyes was beside her in moments, holding her as she heaved and shook; Charlie, in complete defiance of court protocol, ran up to the witness box, wrapped his arms around Cam and held her as she sobbed into his shoulder.

"I don't think we need to see anything else." Liz Donnelly took a deep breath. "This court finds that the prosecution has met the burden of proof for the evidentiary hearing, and finds Corporal Cameron Arlington not guilty of the murder of Young Soo Park and Eun Mi Park. This court finds that sufficient proof exists to believe the defendant had ample cause to be afraid for her life and considered herself in imminent danger from these two individuals and acted in self-defense. The defendant, Corporal Arlington, is free to go with the court's sincerest sympathies."


	11. Chapter 40: News

**Chapter 40: News**

Alex interpreted Liz's quiet nod in her direction as a request for an audience, and as soon as Cam was in the benches surrounded by the Joes, she followed the judge into the Judge's chambers. Inside, Liz had collapsed into her chair, scrubbing her hands over her face. "Jesus, Alex," she said as the blond lawyer closed the door and sat down in the seat across from her desk. "Please tell me you're looking for the son of a bitch who did that to that woman in there."

Alex made a face. "Honestly, Liz, I'd love to, but he didn't do anything illegal. Cam Arlington was still a minor and her guardians had the right to make the decision to sterilize her, even if it was against her will. As reprehensible as we may find it, the most we would legally be able to charge him with is medical malpractice for not insisting that it be done in a hospital…and with anesthesia."

"There has to be something else," Liz said passionately, though hopelessly, because she could see the logic in Alex's argument. "Do we even know who it is?"

Alex sighed. "And there's another problem. No, we don't. Not once during that video does he ever take that mask off. And Cam didn't even know about this until a few months ago—you saw her face, Liz, she was completely out of it. She was so traumatized by the pregnancy and forced miscarriage that she blacked out for a while, a sort of fugue state—and when she finally 'woke up' it was done and over with and she didn't remember. She did wonder where she got those two scars on her belly, but since at that point the clients were leaving scars on her on a regular basis, she never suspected and never knew. Not until just a few months ago. A trunk full of her Aunt and Uncle's paperwork was found in the ashes of the cabin by the tribe, but they didn't know how to tell her they had it, and so she didn't know until we went digging into her past, found the trunk, and gave it to her. She was on her honeymoon before she had a chance to look through all of it, and it was then that she found the ledger that had names and account numbers and how much everyone paid. I'll warn you right now. Liz, I'm going to ask that every penny Yu got from those clients in exchange for the privilege of raping and abusing her be given back to her as restitution—she earned it, after all."

"I'm not arguing with you on that."

"And I'm also filing a civil suit on her behalf against Leo Yu. Cam's father actually left a significant amount of money in trust for her, to be given to her guardian to cover the cost of her ballet training—according to some paperwork we found, he figured out how much Juilliard cost per year and saved and saved. He was planning on sending her Stateside once she turned sixteen so she could audition for the school and if successful, she would be able to start right there. That was why they were sharing house space with Art and Annie Hammond, his best friend and best friend's wife at Osan—he wanted to save every last penny he could to be able to give his little girl her dream. At the time of his death there was nearly twenty grand in the bank, earmarked for her Julliard tuition, ballet shoes, practice clothes, recital costumes and even for a small student apartment if she wanted it."

Liz's eyes weren't quite dry. "Obviously her Aunt and Uncle didn't know about it, or they would have drained it."

"They couldn't. That's the beauty of it, Liz, he set it up so an executor in New York was the only one who could access it, and the only thing it could be used for was her dancing, until she turned twenty-one, and any checks or funds disbursed had to be signed in the presence of the executor by Cam herself as well as her guardian. And we know how that turned out—by the time she was sixteen and they could legally touch it, she'd already been subjected to abuse and they couldn't risk taking her out of the house to see the executor because she would spill the beans on what they were doing to her. And they were already getting plenty of money, they didn't need the trust fund, so they simply let it sit and forgot about it. Then, of course, the fire happened, she disappeared and the Parks died—and although what they had reverted to their closest relative, Mr. Yu, he couldn't touch any of it because that would have required getting a death certificate for her and he couldn't do that without having anyone find out how she died—it would have landed him in prison for sure. So it's been sitting in there ever since, collecting interest. There's nearly forty thousand in there now."

"So she's quite a rich young lady—if she can get to it. But if it can only be disbursed in the presence of an approved guardian and Cam herself—"

"I'm sure Art and Annie Hammond would be willing to come to New York to sign for it so Cam can have control of her own money. " Liz smiled broadly, and Alex felt an answering smile stretch her own lips. "They were listed as her original guardians. Frederick Arlington didn't discount the idea that there might someday be someone on Cam's mother's side of the family in her life, but he made sure that his best friend and the one person in the world that was a real mother to Cam would be caring for the little girl who had come to mean everything to him. He was career military—he knew there was a chance that something could happen to him, even on a safe military base in friendly territory, and that there was a chance that something might happen to his best friend, Art Hammond. But the chances of something happening to Annie Hammond, as a military spouse, were slim, and so he had her name put on there as well.

"When Cam turned twenty-one, the money remaining in the trust fund account would revert to her upon her and her guardian's signature, free and clear, no stipulations. Frederick figured if she hadn't become the dancer she dreamed of being by the time she was twenty-one, she might need the money to start in a new career. So once this is over, and Yu has been sentenced, we'll be fling civil suit to have him removed as the holder of the money and put the account back in the hands of the executor—and then Annie and Cam can sign the paperwork and Cam will get her father's legacy to her."

"Sounds like a plan. I hope it all turns out well for her," Liz said. 'God knows she's been through enough in her life that she needs it. So, tomorrow morning, nine am, Leo Yu's trial will resume."

Alex had her hand on the doorknob when Liz spoke again. "Alex…have you thought that releasing that video to the press might help you identify not only the doctor who performed that sterilization, it might also identify other possible victims and give them justice too?"

"I've thought about it, Liz, and I've told Cam that, but in the end it'll be up to her. That's her in that video, and it'll be up to her whether I release it or not because it's devastating. I had to fight her on just showing it to the court today—she's married, Liz, and until she saw the paperwork, she was still hoping she could have children with her husband. After she found out from her Aunt's journal that her eggs were removed, she realized her chances of having children are gone—she can't have her own, and you know what the screening process for foster and adoptive parents are like—because of her captivity they will never allow her to adopt. She wants kids—she'd be a great Mom, you should see her with Olivia's Auggie—but she'll never be able to have her own."

"it's not fair."

"No, it's not, Liz, but life isn't fair, and we all know that. All we can do, in the justice system, is to try and make it as fair as possible." She opened the door. "Good night, Liz. See you in the morning."

"Good night, Alex."

Charlie didn't say a word until they got back to base, and they'd gotten into bed. Cam herself hadn't said a word the whole time, and it wasn't until they were both lying alone in the dark that he said, finally, "Baby, why didn't you tell me?"

Silence for a long time, then, very softly, Cam said, "I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't even know until we were up on the reservation the first time, and I got a chance to look through all the paperwork in the trunk that the tribe rescued from the cabin. It was then that I found my Aunt's journal and read what they…what they'd decided to have done so that I would never get pregnant again. Those five months—the four I was pregnant, then the forced miscarriage, then the forced sterilization—were the worst of the entire time I was held captive. And I don't even really remember some of it—At the time they beat me to force a miscarriage I was kind of drifting, not really aware of what was going on most of the time; I remember sleeping a lot of the time, I was just so tired…and hungry, and constantly thirsty."

Her voice shook now. "I remember my Aunt saying they weren't going to give me real food until I miscarried, and I remember thinking that I wanted…I wanted the baby…to die…so I could eat, and drink, and so the people would stop coming—Aunt and Uncle told Leo Yu that I was pregnant and some of the more brutal clients came to see me during that time. Mr. Yu told them they could do whatever they wanted to me to try and force a miscarriage, and they…they did. Anita and Caroline came during this period of time. Mr. Yu gave them a discount for coming—they were women, he assumed they'd have the best ideas for how to get rid of an unwanted baby. But nothing worked, until my Aunt and uncle finally just beat me, then they found that doctor, but by then I was so out of it…I wasn't aware of what was going on anymore. I don't remember anything from the middle of the beating until I woke up with stitches in my lower belly and my Aunt gave me a hamburger. It was the first solid, real food I'd had in half a year. And then they gave me nearly a month off, a month with no clients and all the food I wanted so I'd put on weight and look attractive for the clients again."

"How did Alex find the video?"

"There were a bunch of CDs and DVDs in the bottom of the trunk. I never put them in a computer to play them, I didn't want to know what was on them, but one of the discs had the forced miscarriage and the sterilization in them." She took a deep breath. "I didn't know, Charlie, please believe me. I wasn't aware of anything at the time, and then I didn't know how to tell you—especially after meeting your parents and knowing I'll never be able to give them grandchildren."

He heard the tears and reached out to wrap her in his arms. "Cam, it's okay. I'm not going to lie to you, my Mom would have loved to have had grandkids, but she's not married to you, I am, and I don't care if you never have them. I just want you to be happy living with me as my wife. I've told you before, and I'll say it again; I don't care if we never have kids—actually, after watching Auggie, I'm not sure I'd really want them. Too messy and complicated."

Cam gave a hiccup and started laughing, albeit weakly. "Charlie!"

"What? It's true." He grinned at her, relieved to see a smile on her face after the horrific events of the day. "Besides, sooner or later Shana and Snake Eyes are going to have their own and I'm sure they won't mind us borrowing their kid for a while." He stopped. "On the other hand, yes they might…we'll spoil them rotten and then give them back and Shana'll hate us."

Cam laughed. "She will not."

He smiled at her. "No, she won't. You're too close to let that ruin your friendship."

They lay in silence for a while, and he was about to drift off into sleep when she spoke again. "Charlie?"

"Yes?"

"Alex wants to release those videos to the press to try and get the public to help identify the doctor who did it."

He was instantly awake. "And…how do you feel about that?" he said cautiously.

Cam sighed. "I don't really want anyone to see what was done to me. Alex says the police can block out my face and crop the frames so that the only parts visible are the doctor's face, and then release that and see if someone may recognize him."

"And what would be the benefit? Would they be able to arrest him for what he did?"

"Alex said that on the surface, what he did wasn't actually illegal, since I was a minor and my Aunt and Uncle had the legal right to have me sterilized if they so chose. However, the fact that he did so in a basement with the patient clearly…unwilling…and in unsanitary, non-sterile conditions—I would win a malpractice civil suit very easily—and if someone identified him, and other victims came forward, he would lose his medical license for certain, if he indeed has one."

He had to think about that. "Sweetheart, I can't tell you what to do. I can't tell you, like Olivia and Alex are telling you, that after it's all over you'll feel better. I can't even tell you that the whole idea of what you went through bothers me more than a little bit, that every minute of this trial hurts me because I have to watch you struggle through this. You have no idea how much I've wanted to yell at Alex for stressing you out. You haven't been your usual self since we got back from our vacation with Shana and Snake Eyes, and you're starting to lose weight again—the dress uniform doesn't fit you like it did when you first put it on.

"But what I can tell you is that whatever you choose to do, I will support you a hundred percent. This is your life and your decision; I can't tell you what decision to make, like I can't live your life. All I can do is support you and love you and help you bear it."

She wriggled around in his arms and faced him, looking into his eyes searchingly. He said nothing, letting the dim light of her nightlight illuminate his face. Apparently she found what she was looking for, because she finally smiled a little, peacefully, then buried her face in his chest and went to sleep.

Shana stretched out in bed with a sigh. "Jesus, this trial's going to kill me. I wish it was over already. My stomach's in knots, I'm constantly queasy, and every new piece of evidence makes me want to vomit. I had to apologize to Alex for throwing up in her wastebasket."

_Are you sure you don't have a stomach virus or something?_

She frowned at Snake Eyes. "Maybe. Why?"

_You haven't quite seemed like yourself lately._

"Really?" She thought about that. "Well, my stomach's been sort of queasy for a little while now. I've been buying a lot of ginger ale from the vendor on the courthouse steps."

_Have you seen Doc about it?_

"No, I haven't, I've been too wrapped up in this trial and all the crap that went with it." She thought about it. "Okay, come on."

_Where are we going?_

"You wanted me to see Doc, right? Come on."

_Why do I have to come?_

She rolled her eyes. "You suggested it. Now. Come. On."

Doc stared at the printout. Blinked. Rubbed his eyes. Stared some more.

"This can't be right," he muttered to himself. "I have to have done it wrong. Or got the blood mixed up." But even as he tried to convince himself of that, he knew he wasn't. There were only two women who'd come in recently needing bloodwork, and after what they'd seen today, he knew he wasn't going to get this particular result from one of them.

But it was entirely possible he could get this result from the other. More than possible. Likely. Very likely.

He carefully repeated the test again. Very simple, a couple drops of blood here, a couple drops of this chemical here, a short wait…

The results stared at him in the face, and he stared numbly. How was he going to….

And then the door to his office opened, and the two people in the world he least wanted to see at just that moment walked in. "Um…" his voice cracked. He tried again. "Um. What brings you two here?"

"My stomach's been feeling sort of queasy lately, and Snake Eyes told me I might have a stomach bug or something. I came to see you. What's wrong? You look like someone hit you in the face with a board."

"Um." How did he tell her? "Nothing's wrong exactly."

"Have you gotten around to doing the blood tests yet?" As she spoke, Shana's eyes traveled downward to the table in front of him. "Oh, good. You did it. Am I okay?" without waiting for his reply, she grabbed the printout off the table.

Silence for a second. And then she shrieked, so loud Doc winced and covered his ears. "You can't be serious!" She stuck the paper in front of him. "Do it again! It has to be a false positive!"

"I did it twice," he said weakly. "There's no mistake, Shana. You're pregnant."

She stared at him. The silence was so thick that they both distinctly heard the thud of Snake Eyes falling to the floor behind her.


	12. Chapter 41: Conclusions

**Chapter 41: Conclusions**

Shana was giggling, albeit slightly hysterically, as Doc brought Snake Eyes around. He sat up on the infirmary floor, looking dazed, and the mute plea in his eyes needed no explanation.

"Sorry, Snake Eyes. Yes, Shana's definitely pregnant."

His hands moved slowly, like he was still in shock. _How long?_

"I'd say about a month or so. Not that long. Definitely not long enough to show. And…not long enough for…for anything that happened before the trial…to have an effect." He didn't have to explain; tension left Snake Eyes' shoulders as he understood that there was no way Shana had gotten pregnant from anything that happened before Kennedy's trial. "If you remember, I took her implants out right after she came home so her body would have a chance to rid itself of all the drugs and artificial hormones running though her. Did the two of you not use—" He stopped, because Shana and Snake Eyes were both looking stricken. "I take it that's a no."

Two nods.

He sighed. "So I guess the question now is, what do you want to do?"

Incomprehension.

He blinked. "You both are active duty, serving military. This won't affect Snake Eyes any, but for Shana, this is going to be a life-changing decision. You'll have to take some time off to have the baby, and then afterwards, because we can't have families here, and this base is not an ideal one to raise a baby in anyway—I'm sure you could ask for a posting at Fort Hamilton and get it, so you and Snake Eyes could still be together—but if you don't want to do that, well…it's your choice."

Shana put her hands on her hips. "If that's your way of asking if I'm planning on having this baby, then the answer would be of course. We're married, stable, financially capable of having and raising a baby, and the only impediment would be our careers—which is a consideration but not much of one. Besides—it was our carelessness that allowed this to happen, and I'm not punishing the baby just because we weren't careful. The only way I might consider it is if what happened to Olivia while having Auggie will happen to me—am I at physical risk carrying the baby?"

"No, there's little to no risk. You're fully healed, you didn't scar internally during your captivity like Olivia did, and chances are the baby isn't even going to be as big—Auggie's father is not exactly a small man." They all grinned at that, thinking of Clayton's built physique. "But no, I don't foresee any complications. There are no indications that you aren't going to have a happy, healthy, perfectly normal pregnancy." He grinned, then sobered. "All right. I assume you've decided you are going to have the baby?"

Shana nodded emphatically. Snake Eyes, after a quick look at her, nodded too.

"So the next thing you're going to have to decide is when to tell everyone, decide if you'll muster out or remain in the military, or if you'll both take a transfer to Fort Hamilton. You'll also have to let the base's CO know—" and they both winced, thinking about what Clayton would say about their not having been careful, "and the Staff Sergeant so she can take you off active duty."

"Um…do we have time before this needs to happen?"

Doc gave her a stern look. "Sooner rather than later would be preferred, particularly by the Staff Sergeant in question. She'll have some sharp words for you if you delay telling her too long, but I'd say you have about two more months before you absolutely have to say something. About the time your pregnancy starts to show is about the time that you'll have to tell people." He sighed. "But in the meantime, you need to cease alcohol consumption and I'll give you a supply of prenatal vitamins, and you need to remember to take those once a day." He saw her stricken look. "What?"

"I—I drank—on our honeymoon—oh God—what if I messed up the baby already?" she looked horrified.

Doc hastened to reassure her. "I doubt it, at this stage, and I don't think you drink enough to really 'mess the baby up'. Don't assume anything—you know Olivia's mom was raped, and Olivia was a child of that? She told me her mother drank while pregnant with her, and Olivia herself turned out fine. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a funny thing, some women only have a couple drinks while pregnant and their babies are affected, and some of them drink heavily and the babies are fine. I'm not saying you can take chances—I do recommend you cease all alcohol consumption from now on—but I also don't want you to worry unduly."

_Do we know if it's a boy or a girl?_ Snake eyes signed.

"It's too early to tell, we've got a few months before we find that out. For now, just focus on staying healthy, eating plenty, not stressing your body out too much. Take it easy on your physical workouts, and of course, no impacts on your stomach." They all winced, thinking about the video of the beating Cam had taken on her stomach to force her miscarriage. "No bellyflops in the pool."

That mental image was so funny Shana laughed aloud.

"Now, as for the nausea—I think we can rule out a stomach bug—"

_Bun,_ Snake Eyes signed. _As in, bun in the oven._ Shana choked on her laughter.

"—bug," Doc said, though he grinned too. "I think it's pretty safe to say that's morning sickness. Yes, I know you're feeling nauseous throughout the day, but that's what it's called. I could never figure that out either." He went to a cabinet to one side of his office, not the one with prescriptions, but the over-the-counter stuff for little ailments. "Try this. Simple anti-nausea pills." Shana shook two into her hand and swallowed them down dry. "If this doesn't work, we'll try a prescription, but I want to try and avoid drugs for right now. Now go on, this is a lot to absorb, and I know you want to talk. Don't worry, doctor-patient confidentiality applies here; if you're impaired I have a responsibility to report it to Clayton, but this isn't impairment, and as long as you tell them before it becomes REALLY obvious, no one will hear it from me."

They left Doc's office feeling slightly overwhelmed, and walked back to their quarters in silence, each busy with their own thoughts. Shana didn't say a word until they were both back in their quarters, and the silence from the next room indicated Cam and Charlie were asleep—or not in there at all. Nevertheless, Shana used sign language_. I do want this baby, Snake Eyes. I know it'll wreak havoc on our careers, but….it's part you. And I want it._

_It's part you, too. And I want it._ Snake Eyes slid a hand over her lower belly, smiling, a soft, tender, fond smile she rarely saw except in their quieter moments. _Wow. I'm going to be a…Dad._

_Yes, you are. So try to act like a rational husband instead of a thickheaded male._ Shana took the edge off her words with a long kiss, which Snake Eyes returned with interest. It was only much later, as they curled up around each other in bed that Shana thought of something else she wanted to say. _Don't tell anyone yet._

_ Not even Cam? _He signed lazily.

_Not even her. Especially not her._ Shana sighed. _It's not that I think she's going to be jealous or envious—okay, maybe envious, but not in a bad way, more of a wistful I wish—but after knowing what happened, and why she can't have kids—I just want to find some time to tell her, myself, in private. So don't you say anything yet. Not even to Stalker or Clayton. It's just you, me, and Doc for right now._

Snake Eyes nodded, his chin tapping against her shoulder. _Ok_.

The pills seemed to work, and when Shana sat down at the mess table the next morning, the smell of breakfast—eggs and pancakes—suddenly made her feel absolutely ravenous. She piled her tray high with a little of everything on offer, and Allie blinked as she saw the laden plate. "Wow, Shana. You're not hungry at all, are you?"

Shana giggled. Really, she felt good; with the nausea out of the way, she was looking forward to breakfast; with Cam out of jail and cleared of all suspicion of murdering her aunt and uncle, and Leo Yu almost certainly looking at significant jail time for the role he'd played in Cam's captivity, she was able to enjoy eating for the first time since the trial had started. "Had a bit of a stomach bug, so I hadn't eaten well. Just making up for lost time now."

"Are you okay? Did you see Doc? Did he clear you?" Allie was concerned.

Shana dismissed it. "Yeah, I'm fine. Gave me a couple of pills and I'm as good as new." As if to prove her point, her appetite suddenly seemed boundless, and she went back for seconds. "I am, after all, eating for two," she said to herself, pushing back the little warning voice in the back of her mind that said she shouldn't overeat just before the morning run. She wasn't on active duty at the moment, and she did need to eat.

She breezed through the morning run through the base, wondering a bit at the sudden euphoria but feeling too good to spoil the mood. It got her through a shower and getting dressed, carried her out over the bridge, and into the courtroom for the day. Her cheerful spirits seemed to have a cheering effect on Cam, who seemed to be smiling a little more today and was a bit more relaxed. Relaxed enough to face Alex just before the day started and say in a low voice that no one could hear but herself, Shana, and Alex, "Go ahead and release the sterilization video. Just please block out my face."

Alex gave her a tight, quick hug, followed moments later by Olivia, who'd found one of her coworkers, a younger woman named Amanda Rollins, who was off duty that day and who wanted to watch Auggie. "We'll make sure no one sees your face."

Court seemed to fly by that day; with their main attack strategy neatly defused by Judge Donnelly's clipped, "Prosecution has met the burden of proof needed o establish that Corporal Cameron Arlington did indeed fear for her life and was acting in self-defense at the time of the fire. Any other arguments, Mr. Granger?" At hearing he had none (what else could he say, after all?) the court recessed for lunch. Closing arguments would be heard that afternoon, and Alex anticipated the jury getting the case before three PM.

The reporters camped out in front of the courthouse seemed intent on intercepting everyone who left, so Alex slipped them out the back door for lunch at a small basement diner across the street, a discreet place that catered specifically to judges, cops, and lawyers, where other patrons left you alone and no one bugged you about your business. Shana ate with good appetite, but Cam picked a little bit and confessed that she was nervous about the afternoon.

"The hard part's over with," Alex assured her. "You're done testifying, and the defense didn't put him up on the stand to provide testimony, so it's just closing arguments and letting the jury deliberate. And I'll tell you something, while we never like to say anything is a 'slam dunk' case, this is as close to it as any I've ever seen. No one can look at the proof there and find him innocent of anything. And you were great up there, no one looking at you could even think you were lying about anything. And it was great of you to remember that mole." It was indeed; Yu had gone completely white, then red, then white as he understood no one in the jury would buy his innocent story from here.

And Alex still didn't take it for granted; her voice was by turns persuasive and indignant as she addressed the court for her closing arguments. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I stand here not only as a lawyer and a prosecutor, but also as a woman. As a lawyer, I am appalled and indignant at the flagrant violations of rights that this young woman has undergone. Her right to freedom, to liberty, to her life, was cruelly taken away at just the moment when it should have been most exciting. Growing up, learning about life and the world, developing her own identity, these are things we all take for granted and yet were denied her, for the worst reasons imaginable.

"As a prosecutor, I was furious over what was done to her, and although I knew there would be times when she hated me for it, and there were times when I hated myself for it, I bullied her into testifying, forced her to reveal, not only to me, but to you, a roomful of strangers, and to herself things that she would rather never have looked at in the light of day again. As much as she's a victim of Mr. Yu, of her Aunt and Uncle, and all the pedophiles who paid to abuse and hurt her, she is also a victim of the justice system, a system that decrees that we can't get full justice for her because we haven't been able to prove a case against every person who molested her, every person who violated her, in the worst ways for the worst reasons possible. Life has not been fair to her, and I urge each and every one of you to try to even the odds."

She took a deep breath. "But before I was a lawyer, or prosecutor, I was, and am, first and foremost, a woman. I have prosecuted rape cases for most of my professional life, put pedophiles in jail, helped victims…but few have touched me on this deep a level, this personally. Over the past few months I have come to know Cameron Arlington as a beautiful woman. Not beauty of face and form, but the beauty that comes from a strong character and strong-will and determination. Despite all that has happened, she is an empathetic, caring, generous, selfless woman, who chose to take up arms as a soldier in the US Army and not only defend her country, but also to go to another country and fight for those like herself who could be oppressed, abused, just as victimized as she herself has been. I have prosecuted many cases for many rape victims, and I have seen the aftermath. Some of them react by withdrawing, becoming shells of their former selves. Many turn to drinking and drugs, to try and forget what happened to them, and they ruin their lives in the process.

"But Cam Arlington is different. Instead of letting what happened to her get her down, she's used it to strap herself up. After she was accepted by the Iroquois tribe in Western new York, she studied nights and got her GED, no mean feat for a person whose schooling had stopped abruptly when she was 15. With this she enlisted in the military, and as we heard from her commanding officer, she has used her past experiences to drive herself to excel in everything she does. She has an exemplary record, no history of disciplinary problems, a team player and now a beloved wife. I ask you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, to give her the peace and closure that she deserves, to give her the justice she's been denied for almost half of her adult life, and find this man guilty of taking her childhood, her innocence, the life she might have had, away from her, that she can salvage what is left and start in her new life, with her husband, afresh."

Lionel Granger stood up, and compared to Alex's impassioned, seemingly unrehearsed closing statements, he was brief and abrupt, almost jerky and stiff. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, while I and my client have every sympathy for this young Army Corporal, convicting my client will not serve justice. My client had no idea she was not doing this willingly, no idea that his sister and brother in law would have so betrayed his trust as to not be honest about what they were offering to vacation-goers who stayed at the western new York retreat. The fact that this young lady identified one of my clients' personal features does not make him guilty of her imprisonment, abuse and torture; she herself admits she never saw his face, and it is not outside the realm of possibility that someone else may have the same mark as my client did. And so, if you can find an ounce of reasonable doubt in the prosecution's case, then you must acquit, in all fairness to my client."

Liz tapped her gavel on the table. "The jury is now dismissed to the jury chamber to deliberate."


	13. Chapter 42: Verdict

**Chapter 42: Verdict**

Shana flopped down in the back seat of Fort Hamilton's Hummer. "Damn it. What could be taking so long? Sit down, say, 'yes, he's definitely guilty' then come out and tell the judge they decided he's guilty and announce it in court. Why'd they have to spend the whole afternoon sitting in there talking about it?"

"Because that's their job, Shana. And as a former lawyer yourself, you know that. There's no 'it shouldn't take this long'. It takes as long as it takes." She sighed. "Although I will admit that I've secretly always thought the hardest part of the trial process is the wait for the jury to come back. But there's nothing to do but wait for them to finish up, so let's just try to do something productive." She looked askance at Cam. "If you're up to it, maybe this evening we can start reviewing for the next trial?"

"Who is it?" Cam sounded resigned.

"Allan Singletary."

Shana sucked in a breath. "That's the one who Cam used as the cover story for Allie and Conrad to insert her into the Amsterdam slave market."

"Yes, it is. He was one of the only people who came to see me who would tolerate a slave scarred as badly as I am." Cam sighed. "All right. Just sitting around and waiting isn't going to do any good, so I suppose we might as well get it over with. When does the trial start?"

"Monday."

"Seriously? You're cutting it pretty close there, Alex. What if the Yu trial hadn't wrapped up this week? In fact, it's Wednesday, what if the jury isn't done deliberating by Monday?"

"Then I'll ask for a continuance. Rules are that I should hand it to one of my junior prosecutors—either Nick or Christine should be able to handle this—but I refuse to do that, not with this. I can argue that I've been involved with the cases, I know the particulars of each one, and I've developed a rapport with the victim and one of the junior prosecutors wouldn't be able to handle it with the delicacy it requires."

"It's still too close together. Cam needs some time to unwind between each one, this is incredibly stressful for her—"

"Shana. Alex." Cam's quiet voice cut into the conversation. "I am sitting right here, I can hear both of you, please don't talk about me like I'm not here." Both women blushed as they realized that was exactly what they'd been doing. "Honestly, I'd rather just get it all over with, back to back. This whole thing has been horrible, I haven't been sleeping well, I haven't been eating well, and even Charlie's worried. He hasn't said anything except to tell me he's behind me a hundred percent, but he's been hiding snacks in our room so I can nibble if I wake up in the middle of the night hungry." She smiled at Shana. "But you seem to have recovered completely, and I'm glad for that. Seeing you cheerful this morning made me feel a little better."

Shana felt a stab of guilt. _Yeah, I'm looking forward to having a wonderful life with Snake Eyes, pregnant with a baby I didn't plan on, and you've always wanted children and will never have them._ Her heart ached. _I'm so sorry, Cam._ She couldn't imagine what this would do to their friendship. Not that it would break it up, she knew Cam would be happy for her, but the thought of how Cam would feel watching Shana experience something she wanted but now never could…it was those hurt feelings Shana was afraid of, was part of the reason why she hadn't shared the news with anyone yet.

And she also didn't know how everyone was going to react. How did she tell them, all of them, especially Clayton, that she was pregnant? One way or another, her career with the Joes was finished. She couldn't have the baby here on base—well, she could give birth here on base but there was no way she could raise it here on base—and that meant she'd either have to muster out or ask for a posting on a different base. And of course, Snake Eyes would go with her.

The problem was that she'd gotten used to the freedom here at Joe Base. Clayton was generous with his soldiers' preference for unconventional attire, didn't insist that they dress in fatigues, and also allowed them freedom to use whatever unconventional and nontraditional weapons they wanted. On a regular military base neither of them would be able to wear their ultralight armored suits, Snake Eyes wouldn't be able to wear the balaclava that had come to be his signature around Joe base, frightening the new recruits (which Shana knew he enjoyed) and comforting to the Joes later because they knew that under the frightening armor and featureless mask was someone who would give his life defending you in a heartbeat.

Another base would seem stifling, chafing, to Snake Eyes. His lack of a voice would be seen as a liability, and his field operations would be curtailed. Would he be okay with that, given that they'd have a baby? Shana didn't know. But he'd also have to get used to a whole other set of people who were unaccustomed to his silence; she, being busy with the baby, wouldn't be there to translate for him. He'd have to struggle along with writing on little pads of paper, as he did before she'd bullied the Joes into learning sign language.

He'd hate that.

But the alternative—mustering out. If they were careful with their money, they could do well for quite some time before one of them had to go out and get a job; if they were really careful, and the bed and breakfast paid off for them, they might never have to work. They already owned the cabin in the Sierras, free and clear; the renovations were done, and the property taxes—well, careful management and they could swing that too. And that idea had appeal for Shana. Getting away from the organized chaos of the military, leaving it all behind, along with the hustle and bustle of civilization, retreating to their cabin, just the two of them…she liked that idea a lot.

Would she miss the military?

"Earth to Shana." Someone was waving a hand in front of her face; she blinked, focused. Cam, laughter in her eyes and a smile on her otherwise tired-looking face. "Shana, you there?"

"I'm here," Shana rolled her eyes. "Where else would I be?"

"Well, you weren't there for a moment. Come on. We're home." Shana blinked again. They were indeed back at base. She'd gotten so lost in her own thoughts that she'd completely lost track of time. "Come on. I think I could eat."

Although she didn't want to stuff herself in front of Cam and make her friend feel bad, Shana ate heartily, and maybe it was just the influence of seeing her eat with good appetite, but Cam ate a fair amount too, pleasing Charlie, who kept edging more and more off his plate onto hers until she finally laughed at him, both plates clean. Afterwards she and Alex headed off, presumably to find an empty conference room, and Shana headed for her quarters, suddenly tired.

Snake Eyes wasn't back yet from wherever he was, and she changed into casual clothes, then stretched out on the bed. The hem of her t-shirt rode up, and she paused for a moment, thinking about her toned, flat belly, and momentarily sighed at the thought that that would probably vanish as the baby got bigger.

And then she remembered Liv holding Auggie for the first time, eyes alight with pleasure and motherly pride at the wiggling bundle in her arms, and her throat closed. _I want that,_ she thought suddenly. _I want that. I want to hold my baby in my arms, see him smile at me._

Another vision intruded. Snake Eyes, holding the baby, beaming with fatherly pride. Snake Eyes, tossing a ball to a little boy with his blond hair and Shana's green eyes—or a little girl, red hair and his blue eyes. _I want that. He'd be a great Dad. I wonder if we're having a girl or a boy?_

_ We haven't even thought of a name! If the baby's a girl…what's nice little girl's name? Hmm…_

Shana woke with a start. The room was dark, and Snake Eyes was still not in bed with her. Some internal time sense told her it was later, but not much; she'd fallen asleep thinking of names and taken a short nap.

And she was suddenly hungry again.

She got up, stretched, then yawned as she opened the door to their room and wandered out into the hallway. It was early evening; most of the people she passed were in off-duty clothes, and she stopped Conrad as she was headed in the opposite direction and said, "Have you seen Snake Eyes?"

Conrad nodded. "Dojo."

Of course. Where else would he be while off-duty when not with her? And Shana strongly suspected that he was thinking about his impending fatherhood, just as she was. Well, she'd have to talk to him sooner or later, might as well be now.

But as she stepped into the gym on her way to the gym entrance to the dojo, the small knot of people around the door to the 'Girlz Only' workout room caught her attention and she drifted over to have a look. The door was closed, but people were craning their necks to peek through the panes of glass in the window, and the music coming from that room…was that an Irish rhythm?

She pushed and shoved her way to the front of the crowd, and peeked through. And what she saw inside made her grin; there was indeed Irish music in there, a lively reel, and Cam was practicing some of the steps that Mr. O'Hara had taught her; head up, spine straight, hands relaxed at her sides, her feet were flying in time to the music and there was a smile of happiness on her face.

Shana reached for the doorknob, and the people around her scattered, so that when she opened the door, Cam only saw her, and not her impromptu audience. A good thing, because when she looked up, there was no trace of self-consciousness when she grinned at Shana. "I have to thank your dad for teaching me this kind of dance. This is fun."

"I'm glad you think so." Shana said dryly. "I learned all the steps when I was younger from Dad, but although I know them, I just can't perform them in time to the music. I'm just not built that way."

Cam frowned. "But you sword dance with me fine. And Snake Eyes."

"That's different."

Cam tilted her head, looking puzzled. "How is that different? You're still moving in time to the music. The difference is with this kind of dance it's about spatial management with your feet and not having to worry about the placement of your hands and where your sword's going to be. It's actually simpler because you only have to worry about where your feet are going and not about your arms." She grabbed Shana's hands. "Come on. There's a new song about to start, and I'll show you. It's not that hard."

Shana protested. "Cam, it's like me teaching you cooking. You can field cook, but you can't cook in the kitchen, I can dance with a sword, but not with music."

"Nonsense, Shana, anyone can dance. Come on." She stood opposite Shana on the mat. "Take your shoes off. I've been meaning to try and get a pair of those ghillies your dad said are traditional for this kind of dance, but bare feet aren't that bad."

Shana rolled her eyes, but kicked off her shoes and joined Cam on the mat. "Dad's tried to teach me. So many times. My brothers tried to teach me. It never worked."

"It'll work this time." Cam held one of Shana's hands in each of her own, and as the first strains of a new reel started, she told Shana , "You said you know the steps, so close your eyes. Listen to the music, Shana, just do what the music tells you to do. Don't think about your feet. I'll lead."

A few steps, Hesitant. It had been a while since Shana had tried a reel, and she honestly wasn't sure she still remembered. She was just doing this to humor Cam, because it was a while since the last time she'd seen Cam really enjoy herself, and it was so damn unfair that the happy spots in her friend's life could be so overshadowed by the dark, gritty moments. Cam was such a good person, so deserving of more happiness than she'd gotten previously, and it was such a damn shame…

"See? I told you you could!" Cam exclaimed in delight, and Shana's eyes flew open. Her feet seemed to be moving of their own accord, and without realizing it, she'd slipped into the rhythm of the dance, feet moving in time and in synch with Cam's. A delighted smile spread over her own face as she realized that yes, she could dance, and with Cam to direct the steps, it was easy just to flow from one step to the other.

The music started a quick crescendo, and they increased their pace, then stopped as the song stopped on a last high, bright note. As they turned to face each other, slightly out of breath, applause broke out, and they turned, startled, to see the crowd of Joes at the door that Shana had forgotten to close behind her, applauding. Cam flushed, but took a deep bow, then poked Shana in the ribs. Shana managed a slightly awkward version of the bow Cam had given them, and then the crowd of Joes started to disperse as Charlie and Snake Eyes both came into the workout room and closed the door, going to their respective wives and kissing them.

Snake Eyes was grinning as he pulled away. _You looked fantastic, Shana._

"I've never danced like that before. I was convinced I couldn't, I was hopeless at dancing to music. I'm still not sure this wasn't a one-off fluke, that Cam wasn't the reason it worked this time."

_Well, just in case it doesn't…_Snake Eyes pulled his cellphone from his pocket with a merrily wicked gleam in his eye, and Shana stared in disbelief as he cued up the video of her and Cam dancing together.

"Snake Eyes! You didn't!"

_Yes I did. And I'm going to send it to your Dad._

"You wouldn't dare!"

_Sure I would. Watch me._ And he took off. Shana screeched his name and ran after him, intent on getting that phone back before Snake Eyes could send that video to her father.

Alone in the workout room, Charlie hugged Cam close. "Looked like you were having fun."

"It was fun. Shana kept insisting she couldn't, but I knew she could. It's not that different from sword dancing, after all."

He hugged her again. "And you enjoyed yourself too. Come on, let's get you showered and in bed; we have to be at the courthouse again tomorrow."

Her smile disappearing, Cam sighed and allowed him to lead her off to their quarters.

But it didn't turn out to be as much of a chore as any of them had thought it might be.

Court reconvened at nine AM, and they all settled in for what could possibly turn out to be a long wait. Two hours later, however, the bailiff opened the door to the witness rooms and informed then that the jury had reached a verdict; tense, stomach in knots, Shana and Cam followed him in.

Liz Donnelly got the paper with the jury's findings on it with a straight poker face; there was no indication in her expression of what words were on the paper. Instead, she handed the paper back to the bailiff and then said aloud, "Has the jury reached a verdict?"

The jury's foreperson, a short, stockily-built man with graying hair, nodded. "We have, Your Honor."

"How does the jury find?"

The answer was guilty. On all counts. Guilty of possession of child porn, guilty of child prostitution, guilty of child sex trafficking—everything. Liz Donnelly thanked the jury for their service, dismissed them, then turned to the defendant. "Mr. Yu. This court hereby finds you guilty as charged and sentences you to life in prison without the possibility of parole. We find that what you have done is so heinous, that you deserve no mercy, and you have shown no remorse for any of your actions done to violate the person and life of this young woman who has so courageously testified against you.

"This court also hereby decrees that the total of your liquid assets, specifically the money that was paid from the clients into your account, be surrendered to the court and disbursed to Corporal Cameron Arlington. I am not calling this restitution; rather, this is money that you stole from her, money that she earned enduring the torture your clients meted out to her, and as that money was earned by her it will revert to her. Court is now adjourned."


	14. Chapter 43: Singletary

**Chapter 43: Singletary**

Even if Shana hadn't known who he was before she walked into the courtroom, she would have been able to pick Alan Singletary out of everyone else in the courtroom that Monday morning.

_Smug, self-satisfied son of a bitch._ He hadn't yet taken a seat behind the defense table; he was standing off to the far side of the courtroom, talking to a well-dressed man in a suit (his lawyer, according to Alex—no pro bono lawyer for him, only the best defense his money could buy.) And that appeared to be considerable, since the lawyer was one that Shana had seen on TV defending celebrities. He apparently didn't lack for money.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the court, we are here today to lay out the facts of our case against Alan Singletary for you. He is charged with possession and distribution of child porn, travel with intent to participate in child prostitution, and the only reason I'm not charging him with child molestation is because his testifying victim is over the age of twenty-five and the statute of limitations has run out on being able to charge him with molesting and torturing her when she was fifteen." Murmurs from the jury, many skeptical.

_Just wait,_ Shana thought silently in her mind. _Just wait till you see it._ She'd been sitting next to Cam, holding her friend's hand as Alex reviewed the evidence with her—the child porn that had been found on Singletary's computers and house. What horrified her was how much of it there had been, and not all of it was of Cam. There were actually videos with a time stamp of three years ago that featured children as young as nine or ten; considerably younger than Cam had been. Cam had sat there, mutely horrified as she watched these children go through what she went through, and when it was over she'd started crying. "I'm sorry…I'm sorry. If I'd spoken sooner—said something sooner—maybe he would have been caught before he did that. I'm so sorry!"

"It's not your fault, Cam," Alex had said, as gently and firmly as she could. "We couldn't have prosecuted him until we had a firm chain of custody from beginning to end, so even if you'd spoken earlier we still wouldn't have been able to get him. By charging him with soliciting child prostitution and possession and distribution of child porn on your behalf, we can get more of his victims to come forward, hopefully maybe even one that we can prosecute, one victim that the statute of limitations hasn't run out on."

Shana watched, tears blurring her eyes, as a young Cam Arlington was thrown to her knees screaming from electric shocks to her stomach. She knew how much pain electric shocks to that portion of a woman's anatomy could cause. Now Shana fought down the urge to vomit, her stomach flipping uneasily as she watched the defense lawyer get up. "Your Honor, motion to dismiss Corporal Cameron Arlington as a witness. My client is being charged with child porn and travel with intent to participate in child molestation. As she is no longer of an age for which my client can be charged, her testimony will only be unfairly prejudicial to the jury and not contribute anything to the prosecution's case."

"Your Honor, Corporal Arlington is the reason that the defendant traveled to participate in child prostitution. Not once, but five times in the three years that Corporal Arlington was held captive. The defendant Alan Singletary paid almost ten thousand dollars to Corporal Arlington's guardians for the privilege of molesting and torturing her, so her testimony is in fact relevant to the case."

Liz Donnelly's face was inscrutable. "Unfortunately I will have to agree with the defense here, Madam Prosecutor. As Corporal Arlington is older than the statute of limitations will allow, she is not a plaintiff in this case and her testimony is therefore inadmissible."

Shana stared in disbelief, but when court recessed for lunch after the defense finished its opening statement (which Shana barely heard) Alex didn't seem too concerned. "Calm down, Shana," she said in answer to Shana's sputtered, barely-articulate comments. "I was expecting this to happen. Don't worry about it."

"But Cam can't testify!" Shana exploded.

Alex pulled her aside. "Shana, think about it. No, Cam won't be testifying. But the judge could, at any moment, ask her to clarify some point or other, so she needs to still be available. Which means she'll be sitting in the gallery with you, able to watch the proceedings, hear what's going on, and be able to help me by making observations, all without the added strain of having to testify. On the other side of the courtroom, Allan Singletary is going to be nervous. No matter how cool he is, he's not going to be able to help but be wary of her, and the more he checks behind himself to see her, the more he'll look like he has a guilty conscience. And the worse he'll look to the jury. Now do you understand?"

Shana's anger abated as she saw what Alex was talking about. "You mean you engineered all of this so she could be present at the trial and get some closure without the strain of having to testify?" She'd thought she was subtle, but this was a whole new level of deviousness.

"I didn't say that." But Alex was looking altogether too pleased with herself, although she kept a poker face when court reconvened that afternoon and Cam was sitting beside Shana right behind the prosecution's table. Singletary glanced behind him casually as he sat down at his seat behind the defense table, then did a double-take as he saw Cam sitting there. Although her fists curled in her lap, she stared right back at him, levelly, unflinching; it was he who eventually turned away, the first to break eye contact.

_Score one for Cam,_ Shana thought.

And it only got better from there. For the prosecution, at least.

As if aware of Alex's strategy, Liz Donnelly seemed to be going out of her way to draw attention to Singletary's inability to pay attention due to Cam's presence. Several times she told him, sharply, "Mr. Singletary, turn around and pay attention!" because he kept turning to look at Cam and Shana. Cam sat quietly, face impassive, and never said a word—which fact seemed to make Singletary even more uneasy.

_Because if he were in her shoes, he would be gloating, or plotting revenge. She isn't. He would be hurling insults at her, hating her for what she did, and he doesn't understand her quietness, her willingness to simply allow justice to take its course. And because he doesn't understand her, he's afraid of her._

Alex said very little and let the evidence speak for itself. Although the forensics teams had made the effort to blur out the faces of the young victims, the acts themselves were quite graphic indeed and Shana caught many of the jurors making disgusted faces. Liz actually stopped Alex in the middle of one video of a child younger than Cam.

The videos of Cam herself were time and date stamped, and there were many of them. Shana had known intellectually that Singletary had visited Cam's Aunt and uncle's cabin on at least five different occasions, had known that he liked the hunting and horseback activities, but now she saw the systemic abuse and torture Cam endured within the confines of the basement; simple rape was the kindest of what he did to her, and it simply got worse from there.

It was in the middle of one especially heart-wrenching video of Cam being forced to perform an act which she was clearly unwilling to do that a sudden movement off to her left caught Shana's eye, a furtive movement in her peripheral vision. She turned to look, and stopped short, so shocked at what she was seeing that she actually was speechless for a moment.

There was a man sitting at the far end of the bench, and he'd furtively edged his belt open and his pant zipper down. He was trying to be careful about it, without a lot of movement to betray the fact that he was quietly but furtively rubbing himself as he watched the videos being played. She and Snake Eyes had discussed the possibility of seeing this, but she really hadn't expected to see it happening, and he most obviously didn't expect that anyone in the courtroom was going to have the kind of training that Shana did, at spotting movement that others were trying to hide.

She nudged Cam. Cam looked at her, then looked in the direction she was pointing. Turned pale. But before either woman could lean forward and alert Alex what was happening, another woman sitting behind Shana and Cam saw them gesturing , and followed Shana's pointing finger to see what they were looking at.

Her shocked response was beautiful.

The woman flew up out of her seat, her choked cry of disgust and her movement drawing every eye in the courtroom. She pointed a shaking finger at the man, who was, literally, caught in the act—the biophysical evidence was all over his hand. "That…that PERVERT is getting his rocks off watching these videos!" she sputtered.

Her choice of words made a shocked murmur ripple through the courtroom, and Liz Donnelly's expression grew hard. "Bailiff, please arrest that man," she said coldly, and the bailiff stepped forward to do so—then drew back as he realized one hand was…contaminated. Murmurs of anger rolled around the courtroom, and Liz's voice held the whipcrack of a demand. "Who are you?"

The man refused to answer. Liz nodded to the back of the courtroom, and John Munch and Fin Tutuola stepped forward, handcuffs already out. "Arrest this man for public indecency, lewd acts, and contempt of court, for disruption of the solemnity of these proceedings. And I want to know who he is once you find out."

John handed the man a tissue, and in silence the whole court watched as he wiped his hand off, then dropped it in the trashcan. As Munch led the man away, not bothering to try and hide his disgust, Fin reached down with a pair of forceps and picked the crumpled tissue out of the trashcan, then dropped it into a plastic evidence bag and exited behind Munch.

And it was absolutely impossible to concentrate on the trial afterward.

Shana's mind whirled with possibilities. A former molester of Cam's? Someone who knew Singletary? A random guy who'd heard about the trial and just attended in hopes of seeing something that tickled his sick fantasies? She didn't know, and she suspected that it was bothering Liz Donnelly just as much, because she dismissed court at three that afternoon, not four, and asked Alex to see her in her chambers directly after adjournment.

"Do you know who that was?" Shana asked Cam, and Cam had to think for a long moment.

"He looked familiar, but I can't place him."

"One of the men who came to the cabin?"

Cam sighed. "Possibly, but I don't remember clearly. I wasn't really focused on remembering faces and names, I just wanted to figure out what they wanted and get it over with quickly so they would leave me alone. I'm sorry, Shana, maybe if I heard him speak or got a chance to face him I'd have a better idea if I'd ever seen him before."

Shana stopped. Thought. "You think if we asked Alex would let us come to the precinct and see him?"

Cam shrugged. "I don't know."

Alex wasn't in the judge's chambers long, and when she stepped out, she looked relieved when she saw them. "Oh good, you're still here. Come on."

Shana grinned. "Is it allowed? Can we come?"

Alex frowned. "I don't see why you couldn't, but before we go, Cam, is that guy someone you might recognize? Did he seem familiar?"

Cam sighed. "Shana asked me the same thing. I told her I didn't know, I couldn't be sure. He seemed familiar but I don't know for sure."

" 'Seems' is good enough. Come on."

It seemed like a short drive from the courthouse to the precinct, but it was long enough for Shana to call Allie and let her know what happened at the courthouse that afternoon. "We're on our way to the precinct to see if Cam can identify him. She says he seems familiar but without a closer look she can't be sure."

Allie assured her that they were fine, and she'd tell the guys and Clayton where they were and what they were doing. "Go get him, Shan," she said, and Shana smiled as she promised they would.

Cam didn't speak much as they were driving, and neither did Alex or Shana, mostly to give her some quiet so she could try to remember why the man seemed familiar to her. She did manage a wan smile when they got to the precinct and saw Fin Tutuola getting up to greet them, and saw the SVU's captain, Don Cragen, coming toward her.

"I'm glad to see you here," Don said, stopping and giving both Shana and Cam a salute, which they both returned. "I've heard a lot about you and the mission you were on that required Alex and the DA's office to pull off your wild scheme, and while I have to say there was a part of me that didn't think you could pull it off—or should have been given the choice of trying to pull it off—I'm glad to see everything worked out and you both made it back alive and okay."

"I am too," Shana said fervently, a real smile lighting up her face. "I owe Cam my life, if it hadn't been for her, I don't know where I'd be right now. Dead, probably—we both came too close to dying to bear thinking about." She sniffed. "But that's past. What matters now is the guy in the courtroom this morning watching the videos of Cam's abuse. Where is he, and did you find out what his name is yet?"

"We took his prints. Computer's still trying to find a match. He's refused to tell us his name, and we didn't find any ID on him either. Whoever he is, he planned this. Planned on sneaking in, watching the trial, sneaking out."

Shana made a face. "Piece of crap."

Fin smiled. "That's what Liv said. John was a bit more descriptive, in his usual way. Come on, they're in the interrogation room. It'll give you a chance to watch him for a bit without him knowin' you're here."

The one-way mirror was an unsettling experience for Cam; the fact that she could see him but he couldn't see her was a new idea. Nevertheless she tried to put away her unease and focused instead on the man sitting across from the table from John Munch.

Olivia was pacing around the room. Shana saw, and approved immediately; the guy had dismissed John, but he was subtly focused on Olivia and her staying in constant motion, somewhat like a predatory feline circling prey, was definitely cracking his shell. His body language was becoming distinctly uneasy, there was less confidence and more uncertainty. _At some point I'll have to give Liv some pointers on interrogation—she's good but I can see how she could be more effective without crossing the line. Step a little closer to him, just a bit—don't speak, just look at him. Intensely. She could really learn a lot from those courses I took on kinesic interrogation. In fact, she's a natural at it, if she's never taken classes and this is all from practice and knowing instinctively what works._

The guy was speaking. "I'm not going to tell you anything so you can stop wasting your time. And tell this chickie of yours over here that her pacing's making me sick and I might just spew all over you."

"Chickie…" Cam said suddenly, and Shana snapped out of her analysis of Olivia to look at her friend. "I...I heard that. I've heard him say that. I've heard his voice before."

Amanda Rollins was standing there facing the room, just like they were, but now, Shana noticed, she had a small headset. "Liv. This Asian soldier's here, and she says that she thinks she's heard him say that before."

And now Shana saw the other reason for the pacing—Liv had a small earpiece in her ear, no doubt the other end to the headset Rollins was wearing. By pacing, she could keep the ear that had the speaker pointed away from the guy in the chair. "What do you need?" Rollins was focused on Cam, who was frowning slightly in an attempt to figure out where she'd heard the voice before. "Do you need him to say it again?"

"No…just…keep him talking. He…I think…he's familiar, I just can't place him!" she sounded frustrated.

"Keep him talking. Liv. He's definitely familiar to the Corporal." Rollins spoke into her headset.

Inside the interrogation room, Olivia leaned across the table. "So if you're not going to tell us who you are, then at least you can tell us what you were doing there. You obviously enjoyed seeing those videos. Do you enjoy watching little girls scream in pain?"

The man laughed in her face. "What little girls? They're just overbreeding colored monkeys, that's all. Shouldn't be considered human like the rest of us. No reason to consider them the same as us whites."

On the other side of the glass, Cam gasped as it finally hit her. "Overbreeding colored monkeys. Oh, Goddess."

Shana caught her as she swayed. "Don't faint on me. Cam. Cam!" And Don Cragen was suddenly there as Olivia's partner Nick Amaro brought up a chair. Cam crumpled gracelessly in it, eyes wide, face pale with shock. "It's him. It's him." She kept whispering.

"Who, Cam? Who is it?" Shana tried to keep her voice low, but she couldn't keep the urgency out of her tone. "Cam, who is it?"

Cam blinked hard, her throat working convulsively, and Amaro grabbed a nearby wastebasket as she finally managed, "He s-s-sterilized me."


	15. Chapter 44: Perverted

**Chapter 44: Perverted**

Don swiftly went to the door of the interrogation room, opened it. He didn't have to say anything; the minute Liv and John saw him, they got up wordlessly from their chairs and followed him out of the room.

As soon as Olivia saw Shana and Cam, she hurried toward them, concern written all over her face. Amaro was handing Cam a napkin, no doubt left over from some cheap takeout, and took the trashcan away. "What is it? Cam, can you tell me?"

Cam spoke with an effort, her voice shaking. After all the things she'd been through, this was probably the closest Shana had ever seen her to breaking down; her voice trembled as she said, "That's the doctor that my Aunt and Uncle paid to come in and cut me open and take my…sterilize me. I couldn't remember his face clearly, but I remembered his saying that he would keep me from breeding any more colored monkeys."

"It could just be coincidence," Don said soberly, but Shana could tell that he didn't really believe it himself.

"But we cleaned up that video and put it out asking for people to help us find him. None of the leads have panned out yet," Amaro said. "He doesn't look the same."

"But look at how long it's been," Rollins argued. "It's been eight years. That's a long time, long enough for someone to change the way they look, their hair—they could even get cosmetic surgery. And it's not like he really had anything significant to hide—during the video we saw he was wearing a surgical mask."

"And if he was wearing a mask and Corporal Arlington never saw his face, we only have her word that this is his voice he heard. And she was pretty out of it on the video, so we can't make unfounded accusations." Don Cragen pointed out reasonably.

"Then let me see if we can get this out of him," Olivia went to her desk, opened a folder, and took out screen shots from the video in which Cam had been sterilized, and then she and John disappeared back into the interrogation room.

She allowed her anger to show as she slapped the photos down onto the interrogation room table. "Now I know what you were here for, why I kept thinking you looked familiar. This is you, isn't it?"

He picked up a photo, looked at it, carelessly dropped it back on the table. "That's not me."

John picked up the photo, looked at it. Then looked at the guy again. "Sure looks like you. Look, you even have a birthmark next to your eye just like the guy in the picture does." Olivia leaned in to look; sure enough, the photo John held had a small brown spot at the corner of the left eye that matched an identical one on their subject.

"Coincidence," the man scoffed, but there was a note of uncertainty in the cocky voice.

"Coincidence?" Olivia leaned over the man, standing close to him with one hand pushing the photo in front of him. "You have a mole just like the man in the video. You show up to attend the trial of a man who molested a young woman who was a child when this happened. You're caught getting your rocks off in a courtroom while videos of that child are played, a child who you illegally cut open and sterilized without anesthesia!"

"It wasn't illegal! I did nothing illegal! Her guardians wanted her sterilized and gave their permission and that was exactly what I did!" And then he clamped his mouth shut, suddenly realizing he'd been provoked into a confession.

Olivia's voice was full of loathing. "Irregardless of what her guardians said they wanted, when you walked into that basement and saw a young girl tied to the bed with so many ropes she couldn't move, saw her emaciated body, bulging stomach with bruises and welts, saw her eyes glazed and unaware of her surroundings, don't tell me you couldn't tell that she was clearly a victim of abuse and not able to consent to anything. You should have walked out right there."

The door opened, and Alex stepped into the room—with Cam. "I have someone I'd like you to meet," Alex said, and her voice was ice and steel, hard-edged. "This is Corporal Cameron Arlington, US Army."

The blood drained from the man's face. "But…but…you died. The cabin burned. I saw it in the papers."

"I survived," and oh, the bitterness and hatred in Cam's voice. "I made it out. I survived. And I never ever remembered you until the trials brought up the videos of what you did to me." She was choking on her words, trying to force them out through her tears. "Why? Why did you do this to me? It didn't matter so much when I was a prisoner in the basement, I never thought I'd leave there alive—but I'm married and I want kids and you took that away from me! Why?"

When he answered her, he was still pale with shock, being confronted by his victim of all those years ago, but his voice was sneering. "Like we really want anymore of you coloreds breeding. And your Aunt and Uncle didn't have a problem with it, and they were legally your guardians so they had a right to say what happened to you. Not like you wanted a little half-breed monkey bastard anyway. Hope you didn't marry a white."

Olivia and Alex both lunged at the same time to keep Cam from connecting with the smugly smiling son of a bitch sitting calmly in the chair. Wild, incoherent sounds erupted from her, sounds of fury and pain and rage, and they made tears spring to Olivia's eyes even as she wrapped arms around Cam, preventing her from hitting him. Cam didn't lash out at Olivia, simply ducking as if to try and get around the detective, but when that failed she simply collapsed, legs folding under her as she buried her face in Olivia's shoulder and cried. Olivia knelt there on the floor, not caring what the perp was going to think, what her coworkers would think, what anyone thought. Cam was crying so hard she was shaking, and Olivia smoothed her hair, hushed her, as if she were holding Auggie.

"Ssh. It's okay, sweetheart, it's okay. You'll be okay, Cam, let's get you off this floor. Come on." She got to her feet, and Cam somehow got shaking legs under her and walked out of the room.

Cragen was waiting for them. "In my office." Shana took Cam from Olivia; Liv had to go back into the interrogation room, and Cam didn't look able to walk by herself. Face to face with the man who had taken her dreams away from her, she'd finally met the one thing her courage and will and determination couldn't sustain her through, and Shana was glad she'd decided to come.

Cam sat silently in Don Cragen's office with Don, Shana, and Amaro. Amaro sat on the edge of Cragen's desk, quietly handing her tissues, and Shana sat on the arm of the chair Cam sat in, arms wrapped around her friend, letting Cam cry herself dry. Finally Cam sat back and scrubbed at the tears on her cheeks. "I'm s-s-sorry," she sniffled.

"It's okay," Don Cragen said gently, and Amaro nodded. "It was a terrible shock, and he did something to you that no person on Earth has a right to do to another human being. I'm going to enjoy seeing this son of a bitch in jail." He said quietly, "If you'd like there's a small lounge upstairs," and he gestured to the back of the room, where a flight of steps led to a small balcony overlooking the squadroom. "You can get a little something to drink there, and get some peace and quiet." Cam nodded, and Shana got up and went with her wordlessly.

Olivia desperately wished she could scrub her brain. What he'd told her and Alex was one of the worst things she'd ever heard in her career in the SVU, and the only thing that made her not want to step out of this altogether and excuse herself was the thought that he'd done this to a friend. To a soldier. To one of Clayton's soldiers. She didn't even want to think about what he was going to say when he found out; he cared for all his soldiers on a very deep, personal level, and anything that hurt one of them hurt all of them. She'd heard the term 'band of brothers' but had never realized how deep those bonds ran until she was faced with it herself—and for this unit, the bonds ran deeper than most.

Shana was sitting in Olivia's desk chair, but got up as soon as she saw the brunette detective coming. "Cam's in the Crib," she said quietly to Olivia's raised eyebrow. "Cried herself to sleep. It's really late in the evening now, we'll probably just find a little hotel in the city instead of trying to get back to base this late. Fort Hamilton won't like us waking them up."

"I have a better idea. As soon as I'm done filling out this paperwork, let me take you home."

"Home? Your apartment? Isn't it going to be a little crowded with you and Alex and—" she stopped because Olivia was shaking her head.

"Alex got her own apartment a couple weeks ago. She and Ettienne got tired of waking Auggie up with their…personal activities…and Clayton insisted his son needed his own bedroom." She grinned. "I haven't gotten around to moving Alex's old bed out yet, so I have a spare bed and bedroom. All I have to do is push Auggie's crib into my own room."

Shana sighed. "Ordinarily I wouldn't take you up on that offer, but in this case I will. Cam's too tired to move right now, and this really hit her hard."

Cam roused when Shana touched her, but she looked drained and exhausted, and Olivia was glad Shana had taken her up on her offer. Her Mustang had enough room in it to fit the three of them, and it was a short, quiet ride to her apartment. Cam didn't ask questions, and Olivia, sensing her reluctance to even talk about the subject, didn't broach it.

The door was opened by a young woman, blond, smiling. "Kathleen Stabler, Elliot's second daughter," she said by way of introduction.

"Shana O'Hara," Shana introduced herself, and, somewhat quieter, Cam spoke her name.

"Please to meetcha," Kathleen said, then turned to Olivia. "Auggie's asleep. Had a full bottle and ate some of the strained chicken—he didn't like the peas much, though."

Olivia grinned. "He'll have to get over it. Okay, Kathleen, thank you for babysitting. I'll give you a call tomorrow."

"Okay. Good night, Aunt Olivia." And she was gone.

Auggie must indeed have been tired, because he didn't stir as Liv, Shana, and Cam pushed his crib out of the second bedroom and into Olivia's. Olivia quietly handed Cam a pair of her own running shorts and an old, worn, comfortable NYPD t-shirt, and half an hour later the young woman was asleep in the second bedroom. Shana accepted another pair of shorts and t-shirt from LIv and disappeared into the bathroom to change. When she came out Liv was already comfortable and puttering around in the kitchen, putting together a meal. Shana's stomach suddenly rumbled, loud enough for even Olivia to hear, and Shana realized she was starving.

"I figured you might be hungry." Olivia brought over two steaming plates of spaghetti, and Shana grinned as she took it.

"I was and I didn't even realize how much," Shana admitted as she got down to the business of really putting herself on the outside of the food. "I've been so wrapped up in these trials and what's going on with Cam I haven't been paying much attention to anything else. This son of a bitch you have now—I've never seen her lose control like that. I've never seen her attack someone offensively, and it was a bit of a surprise. Everything else that's happened she seems to be able to deal with, but this…this really hit her hard."

"Well, you also have to take into consideration that she's had more time to assimilate the other things that have happened, but she didn't know about her sterility until she read her guardians' diary. George Huang took a look at the video, told us that after the forced miscarriage—"

Shana put her fork down. "Liv. Let's call it what is; an abortion. She didn't miscarry on her own, and if she'd been left alone she would likely have given birth to a healthy little baby. They decided they didn't want her to have it, and they took steps to make sure she never got pregnant again. By calling this guy."

"Cromwell. Peter Cromwell. We got a confession from him—Cam's aunt and Uncle told him everything. They made an almost obscene amount of money off her getting pregnant—They contacted Leo Yu and told him what happened, and he contacted every client he knew who liked the idea of torturing a pregnant girl and offered them a discount on a week-long convention of all of them, to do whatever they wanted to her where health of the baby wasn't a consideration. The video you saw of Cromwell sterilizing her was about three days after the convention, and she was completely out of it by then. Her mind shut down, just like yours did back on Kennedy's private island. She couldn't deal with consciously knowing what was happening to her and she simply shut down. A defensive move, and George said that if she hadn't, she might have lost her sanity during the sterilization. Her mind therefore blocked the memory out until she was ready to deal with it—which happens to be now, with her finally finding out from the paperwork she found in the trunk. And she was on her honeymoon at the time, and she didn't want to deal with it then because she didn't feel like she could tell her husband. Personally I think he's a better man than she gave him credit for, I didn't think he'd hold it against her, but that was her decision."

Shana was shaking her head, appetite gone. With the knowledge that she had a baby growing in her own body, she couldn't imagine how Cam had felt—first because she hadn't wanted it, hadn't known the father and had been raped, then to the 'convention' and the sterilization—"I can't imagine how she survived it."

"But she did. And she's an incredibly strong, empathetic woman, despite everything that's happened to her." Olivia looked searchingly at Shana for a long moment, then said, "Is this the reason you haven't told her you're pregnant yet?"

Shana's jaw dropped in surprise. Liv smiled knowingly. "I saw the way you got up. It doesn't show yet but you walk like your back's a little sore, and I remember walking like that when I had Auggie."

"Right now only Doc, Snake Eyes, and I know." Shana was still stunned by Olivia's perception. "Please don't tell Clayton."

Olivia sighed. 'You're going to have to tell Clayton soon, Shana. You can't keep it a secret forever."

"I know I can't, but we're still in the middle of deciding what we want to do, and until we have plans I don't want anyone to know unless they absolutely have to. Please don't tell Clayton."

"I won't, but it's going to become very obvious very soon, Shana. Much sooner than it was for me because you're a lot slimmer and in better shape than I am—than I was—and you're not going to be able to get it past him. He doesn't miss much."

Shana grinned. "Tried getting something past him and found it didn't work?"

"Auggie was trying to crawl and bumped his elbow on the table. I didn't even know he bruised—he's not much of a complainer, he's a pretty stoic little guy—but when Clayton came over he saw the bruise and demanded to know what happened. I didn't know, and I told him—we went around the apartment looking for something he could have hit that was the shape of that bruise and it ended up being the table leg. Clayton got upset that I wasn't keeping a better eye on his son."

Shana rolled her eyes. "He's a kid. He's going to get a lot worse than that by the time he starts school. Did you tell him that?"

Liv snorted. "I told him exactly what I thought about his insisting I wasn't keeping an eye on _his_ son. He's my son too, and I love him dearly, and I'd never let anything happen to him, but at the same time he's going to have to learn the way all kids learn. And I told him if he was going to freak out over a bruise, was he going to fall apart when Auggie comes in with a skinned knee?"

"What did he say?"

"He mumbled something and just started fussing about companies making ice paks sized for children. I gathered from that that he was sorry about his reaction but he didn't want to come straight out and say it. He doesn't apologize easily."

"I guarantee you you've heard more apologies from him than we ever have!" Shana laughed. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it. It's even kind of adorable, in a very thickheaded-male-ish sort of way."


	16. Chapter 45: Black Market

**Chapter 45: Black Market**

Alan Singletary's trial resumed the next day, but went largely unremarked on by the media.

They seized eagerly on this new bit of material, this fresh scandal around Peter Cromwell, and while the SVU were conducting their own investigation, the press were doing their own digging and they were turning up material that, while it wasn't actually relevant to the case, it provided the SVU insight into what Peter Cromwell was really like.

He was forty-five, a practicing OB/GYN out on Staten Island, and according to court records (and the press interview of his two ex-wives) he was abusive and prone to violence. The court had issued several restraining orders against him during the course of his first marriage, which lasted for five years; and one during the course of his second marriage, which lasted three years. This second wife told reporters quietly that she had a little girl from a prior marriage and she hadn't liked the way her new husband started looking at her daughter, and when he hit her, she'd called it quits.

Two days after the news of Cromwell's arrest hit the papers, the first wife, now Melissa Garrett, told the press that he'd taken several trips to upstate New York to attend a doctor's conference. And when the SVU looked at the ledger Cam's Aunt and Uncle had kept, they found Peter Cromwell's name, next to a pseudonym he'd used a couple of times at Yu's travel agency—the first time he'd had a trip to the New York cabin arranged through Leo Yu, he'd used his own name. The two trips he'd taken afterward (he went about once a year, probably to cover the fictional 'doctors' conference') had been taken under a pseudonym, but the social security number and the signatures on the paperwork was the same, as certified by an NYPD handwriting expert.

Cam herself didn't recognize him, but only later did it come out that he'd timed his visit to coincide with the visits of a couple of the other clients, and Yu's file on him indicated that he'd never directly participated in Cam's abuse; he'd either not had the money to pay the extra fees to participate in the activities, or he simply preferred to sit back and watch as other clients hurt her, and get his rocks off that way . "Sick son of a bitch," Fin Tutuola was heard cussing, and no one argued—or corrected his language.

It wasn't until after the 'convention' and the forced miscarriage that Yu contacted Cromwell regarding sterilizing Cam so the incident wouldn't be repeated. And he'd offered Cromwell the opportunity to fulfil a fantasy Cromwell had had for a long time; sterilization, without anesthesia. Olivia was heard to remark to Amaro that this particular piece of information meant that Cromwell couldn't use the excuse that he didn't know she was unwilling when it came time for his trial; in fact, Alex was planning on charging him with child porn, child endangerment, medical malpractice, and assault and battery. Cromwell came to upstate New York and performed the sterilization. He never performed the actual, physical act of raping her—but what he'd done was a much more extreme violation, and Alex told Olivia in the squadroom one evening that she fully intended to bury him.

"It's depraved indifference. No one can look at that and not see it. An unsanitary basement, instruments that we have no idea were clean and sterilized, the indifference to her pain and suffering—I want to stick a needle into his arm," Alex said, viciously stabbing a pair of chopsticks into some Chinese takeout a couple of days after Singetary's trial wrapped up—with a guilty verdict and a sentence of twenty years in prison. Cam had not had to testify at all, and with this much stress, at least, taken off her, she'd been smiling a little more—although she still looked pale and tired.

Part of it was the fact that she was now coming to terms with this new indignity that had happened to her, which her mind had blocked out because she was too traumatized to deal with it at the time it happened—and part of it was that she'd started treatment for the burns, leaving the courthouse at four pm each afternoon and going to the burn scar clinic in the evenings for pulsed-laser treatments, in which skin cells from elsewhere on her body had been injected into various places under the scar tissue on her back, torso, thighs; a hair-thin laser was then focused on those areas with an eye toward encouraging the injected skin cells to 'take' and then multiply, at a faster rate than they might otherwise, and once they'd multiplied and were of sufficient thickness, the scar tissue would then be scraped off the surface of the new skin.

Alex had been looking into this treatment to take care of some of the scars left from her captivity in the Congo, but after watching Cam go through this, she'd decided against it. She was too busy and couldn't take the time off; her scars were only cosmetically disturbing and not physically debilitating or restricting; and she saw how much pain Cam was in and couldn't bear the thought of enduring more pain, again. Ettienne had told her quietly that it didn't matter, he loved with her scars or without, and it was her choice.

After Cam was done at the clinic in the evenings (they could only do small patches at one time) it was too late to get to Fort Hamilton to return to Joe base, so Cam had been spending quite a few nights lately on the spare bed in Olivia's second bedroom. Olivia herself had told Alex just how difficult it was; Cam came in drained and exhausted and in tears because the process hurt; she cried herself to sleep in the spare bedroom, and Olivia herself had on a couple of occasions had to help Cam into the bath because the younger woman was too exhausted and in too much pain to move by herself.

On the few evenings that Charlie had been able to get off, he'd been waiting at Olivia's apartment for Cam. "He takes such good care of her, Alex. He really loves her, and I hope someday that maybe Clayton and I will get a chance to have that kind of relationship, when he's done with the military. Someday. Maybe." And Alex smiled understandingly; she too was looking forward, someday, to being able to enjoy life with Ettienne, apart from the military and her job.

But Cam was never far from her thoughts, either hers or Olivia's, and Alex had taken the opportunity to sit down and have dinner with her this evening in the quiet squadroom. It was one of the nights when Charlie had gotten off, and Cam would be getting home from the clinic, and Olivia knew both of them well enough by now to trust them in the apartment with Auggie; Cam was in love with the little guy, and he found her a suitable substitute for Olivia when Olivia wasn't there, and both Cam and Charlie said it was no trouble to babysit if Liv had to work late—so Olivia had taken the evening to wrap up a couple of cases and have dinner with Alex. Some quiet time together, something they rarely had the leisure for anymore, between their jobs, their new responsibilities—Auggie, for Liv, and Ettienne and the Joes, for Alex.

Olivia smiled as Alex stabbed at her noodles with her chopsticks again. "Save the ire for the perp, not your food, Alex," she said with a hint of laughter in her voice—which disappeared as she saw the doors at the far end of the squadroom open and a woman walk in. "Can I help you?" she asked, smiling as she rose from her chair.

"I'm looking for Detective Olivia Benson, the guy at the desk downstairs told me she'd be on the fifth floor."

"I'm Olivia. Come on in, sit down. How can I help you?"

The woman paused by the proffered chair, twisting her hands nervously. "I don't know if I should even be here. I don't know if I could get in trouble for this."

"Nothing you say will go further than the two of us. This is Alex Cabot, she's a prosecutor—"

"I know, I saw her on TV." The woman still hesitated, but finally sighed. "It's about the guy that I've been seeing on the news. You have Dr. Peter Cromwell in custody when you caught him in the courtroom getting excited while watching the evidence?"

Alex nodded. "Yes, we have him in custody."

The woman took a deep breath. "I don't know if this has any relevance, but…I work at New Hope Fertility clinic on Staten Island. In addition to in vitro fertilization, we also take egg and sperm donations. Dr. Cromwell is a regular at the clinic—he brings in egg donations and my boss pays him."

"Peter Cromwell brings in egg donations?" Alex asked sharply, her eyes narrowing. "Where does he get them?"

The woman nodded, relaxing a little. "I never wondered until I saw the press reports, that he sterilized a little girl and took her ovaries. I wondered if some of the donations he brought in were actually from illegal sterilizations."

Olivia leaned forward, eyes suddenly intent. "The little girl who was sterilized in the video was fifteen when it happened. It was eleven years ago. Was Peter Cromwell coming in eleven years ago?"

"I've been working there for twelve years. Yes, he was a regular visitor when I started working, although he hasn't brought in anything in a little while—the last three or so years. But I was wondering if…if one of the donations he brought in eleven years ago…could have been that little girl's."

"That 'little girl' isn't a little girl anymore, she's twenty-six, and she's married. And she wants kids but can't have any." Liv sucked in a breath. "So all that racist bullcrap he was spewing all over here was just that—bullcrap. If he really honestly doesn't like people of other races, he wouldn't have sold her eggs to a fertility clinic. I wonder how much he got for them."

That question was answered when they talked to Mr. Cromwell later.

"I didn't sell them. Why would I want more of those coloreds running around?" But even Alex could tell he was lying.

"We've already found out, Mr. Cromwell, don't lie to us or play with us. I could add charges of grand theft to the ones already on the charges sheet, but in the interests of justice and getting back for Corporal Arlington what you stole from her, if you just admit it I'll recommend leniency in sentencing for your cooperation."

There was a long moment of silence, then Peter Cromwell sighed. "Yes, I took her ovaries, froze them, and then sold them to the fertility clinic. I got five thousand dollars under the table for them." He shrugged. "I thought it was my right. Her guardians didn't pay me to come all the way upstate to sterilize her, so I at least wanted to get some money off the whole deal."

_What, being able to satisfy your sick fantasy wasn't enough?_ Olivia didn't voice what she was thinking, although, by the expression in Alex's eyes, the blond lawyer was thinking the same thing too. When Alex spoke, though, her voice showed no hint of her disgust; getting justice for Cam was more important. "Thank you, Mr. Cromwell. That's the first decent thing you've done throughout the whole mess, and as I know your lawyer has advised you to plead guilty and accept a deal, my deal will reflect the fact that you've tried to cooperate. In this one thing, at least."

Shana and Cam stared at Olivia and Alex openmouthed. It was Shana who recovered her voice first. "That damned lying piece of crap. Making it look like he was racist when what he actually did was make money off her." Shana finally said, bitterly.

Beside her, Cam sat speechless, and Olivia knew what she was going to say next was going to hurt, but she had to tell Cam everything. "A couple of years back, there was a power outage at the fertility clinic, and the generator keeping a couple of the storage containers for the donated eggs and sperm cool failed. Everything in the container was…ruined…by the resulting high temperatures, and I'm sorry to say that your eggs were in one of the containers."

Cam drew in a shaky breath. "So even though my eggs weren't destroyed at the time, they are still gone. I guess it was too much to hope."

But Shana was looking at Olivia and Alex. "There's more. Come on, spit it out," she said, rather more harshly than she intended, but neither Alex nor Olivia took offense—it was more important that they tell Cam what they needed to tell her.

Olivia took a deep breath, and softened her voice. "According to the fertility clinic's records, your eggs were sold to them in the summer of 2004. Between 2004 and when the generators failed in 2009, your eggs were chosen by couples three times. Each couple had four eggs fertilized, two from a sperm donation, and one from the husband of the couple, for a total of twelve eggs fertilized. Of those twelve, one resulted in a live birth."

There was complete silence for a moment, then Shana exploded. "Wait. Cam has a child out there?" She flew up out of her chair, green eyes snapping sparks. "Her eggs were stolen from her, not donated willingly. So that child is biologically half hers and she should get to have that child!"

Cam was sitting mute, the shock of hearing it leaving her speechless as tears welled up in her eyes. Alex ignored Shana's angry outburst and handed Cam a tissue. "What we were able to find out is that the child is a boy, and he's five now. He was born on August 10th, 2007, and his mother was unable to use her own eggs but she used her husband's sperm. So this child is half Cam's and half this other woman's husband."

"I have a son out there. I have a son." Cam was whispering it like she couldn't quite believe it.

"Yes you do. Now it's up to you to decide what you want to do."

"Do? She's going to get her child!" Shana said angrily. "I can't believe we're even discussing it!"

Alex opened her mouth to say something, but Cam spoke first. "It's not that easy, Shana. He's five. He has a mother and father, a life, probably relatives and people who care about him. Charlie and I are both soldiers on a top-secret classified military base that we couldn't bring a child on, and I'm a complete stranger. The only thing in common we have is a strand of DNA. He wouldn't recognize me as his mother. His parents would resent me for butting in where I wasn't invited. It wouldn't be fair."

"But it's not fair to you. Through circumstances over which you had no control, you are unable to have kids and this little boy is your only shot at it. Don't tell me you don't even want to know what he looks like."

"I do," Cam said, very softly, and they could all hear the longing in her voice. "I want to see him. I want to know what he looks like, if he's happy, if his parents love him. But I don't want to hurt him, or his parents."

Shana couldn't argue with that. "But you have to agree that at least they should know," she said. "They should know that the egg donation wasn't a donation, that yours were stolen and now there's no hope of you ever having kids."

"I have to agree with Shana on that one," Liv said gently. "They should at least know where their son comes from. They should know what their son's mother looked like, and how strong and brave and compassionate she is. They should know what sacrifices you've made for everyone around you, and if after that, they decide that they don't want him to get to know his biological Mom, you'll at least have met them and knew he was happy and loved."

"I…I do want to meet him," Cam said finally, so quietly that they almost had to strain to hear her. "If there is any way in which you can make that happen…please."


	17. Chapter 46: The Farrs

**Chapter 46: The Farrs**

The house was a neat brownstone facing Riverside Park, with a lovely view of the river from the backyard framed between trees. There were two cars parked outside, one a Mercedes, one a mid-size Buick.

"Looks nice," Olivia said as she and Alex got out of the unmarked police car they'd used to get uptown from the precinct.

Alex snorted. "Better be. He's a real estate broker, and she's a fitness instructor and mom, and they're both making decent amounts of money. At least they look prosperous and happy, but you and I both know that sometimes the reality inside the house can be very different."

Olivia squared her shoulders. "Don't remind me. All right, come on, let's see if they're home."

The door opened shortly after their first knock, and Olivia and Alex understood instantly why Cam's eggs had been chosen to give this woman the child she wanted. She was a sweet-faced Asian woman, probably in her mid-thirties, who looked out at them through the glass storm door. "Can I help you?" she said, politely but slightly cautiously.

Olivia dug her badge out of her pocket. "Detective Olivia Benson, Manhattan SVU, and this is Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot. If you have a few minutes, we'd like to speak with you."

The woman hesitated, but just as she opened her mouth they heard a voice behind them. "What is it, Lynnie?"

Olivia and Alex both turned to see a tall man standing on the sidewalk behind them at the bottom of the three steps that led into the house. He was wearing a gray t-shirt and black running shorts, had an iPod strapped around his upper arm, and was sweating as if he'd just finished up a run.

"Brian, these two women are cops. They asked if they could speak to me."

"Is something wrong?" the man stepped forward, concern written on his face.

"This is a somewhat delicate conversation, Mr. Farr, and I think it's one we could better have inside," Olivia said pleasantly.

"No. I want to know what this is about before I invite the cops into my house." He was not going to budge, and Olivia sighed mentally.

"Mrs. Farr, five years ago you went to New Hope Fertility Clinic out on Staten island and chose an egg from an egg donor, had it fertilized by your husband, and had the embryo implanted in your own body. This resulted in your son. We came here to inform you that the egg donation that you chose actually wasn't a donation—the eggs were taken forcibly from a sixteen-year-old girl against her will and sold to the fertility clinic."

"The eggs were…stolen?" The woman staggered, caught the edge of the doorframe for support. Her husband lunged forward, yanking open the storm door and catching her. "Come inside. I don't want to have this discussion out here," he said tightly, and Alex and Olivia followed them inside.

The house was clean and neat, comfortable furniture, TV's, all the accoutrements of a middle-class lifestyle. "He's in kindergarten now, so we can have this conversation in private," Brian Farr said grimly as he settled his wife in one chair at the round kitchen table. "Have a seat." He sat down himself.

"I realize this must come as a shock to you," Olivia said quietly. "But we're in the middle of a rather high-profile case in which your son's biological mother is a complaining witness, and it came out during the case that her guardians decided to have her sterilized after an unwanted pregnancy and a doctor named Peter Cromwell performed the operation and then sold the eggs to the fertility clinic. We're investigating the clinic too, at this point—paying doctors under the table for 'donations' is illegal—but for this witness, her ability to have children was taken away from her and a power failure at the clinic a couple of years ago destroyed the rest of the eggs taken from her. Your son is the only biological child she will ever have."

"Now look. Her guardians made the decision to have her sterilized, and since you say she was sixteen at the time, they had the legal right to make those kinds of decisions for her. So you can't say they were stolen. And you also said she had an unwanted pregnancy, and since that didn't result in a child, apparently she wasn't physically capable of carrying one."

Olivia's voice had a slight edge in it. "Your son's biological mother was being held captive, against her will, forced to submit to pedophiles by her guardians in exchange for money. When she got pregnant all they saw was the loss in income and they starved and abused her until she miscarried, then called a doctor named Peter Cromwell in to do the sterilization. It was performed in a dirty basement without anesthesia and afterward Peter Cromwell took the excised organs and sold them to the fertility clinic—which was where you chose them to have your son."

Brian sat, stunned, but Lynn was staring at Olivia, tears in her eyes. "That's a horrible thing to do to a child—how could her parents do that?"

"They weren't her parents. They weren't related to her at all. She grew up at Osan Air Force Base in Korea with her father, an Air Force Captain. There was a malfunction with his plane one day, it crashed and he died, and as he had no living relatives, they started looking for relatives of the mother who had abandoned her as an infant. They found two people with the same last name as her mother—Park—in New York, and sent her to them. The reality of it was that they were North Korean spies who deliberately tricked the military into giving them custody of an orphan. They pumped her relentlessly for information about the US base on which she had grown up, and after they got every last bit of information they thought was useful from her, they started renting her out to pedophiles, and made and sold child porn for money. When she got pregnant they organized a gang-rape, hoping that would make her miscarry; when that failed they starved and beat her until she miscarried, then they brought Peter Cromwell in to sterilize her."

Brian held up a hand. "Stop. Stop. We don't need to hear any more about this. Brian is our son, and Lynn is his mother, and I don't know how you all found out about all of this but you can tell that biological mother that we're not giving her our son just because she had a bit of a rough time and can't have kids of her own now!"

Olivia knew this was a shock to him, and that it was hard hearing what had happened to the biological mother of his son, but she also thought he was being rather callous and uncaring about what Cam had gone through. "Cameron Arlington isn't going to try and take your son away, Mr. Farr. She wants to see him. Just see him. She is a decorated active-duty soldier currently posted at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, a Corporal, newly married. There was some opinion among them that since your son is half hers, she should try to get visitation, but she insists that she doesn't want that. All she wants is to see her son, just once. She says she understand he has a life here, parents who love him, probably relatives who care about him and school and friends and a life, and she herself is very busy as a soldier and couldn't give him the kind of time and attention that she would like. She agrees that staying with you is the best thing for him, she just wants to meet him." Alex's voice was soft. "Please." She and Liv both knew how much it would mean to Cam.

"No." Brian stood up. "No. How do we explain to our son why his mother is not his mother? He is five and too young to understand that babies come from eggs and sperm and his mother isn't the one who gave him half his genetics? There's no reason he ever has to know that; we chose an Asian egg donor because my wife is Asian and so the child will never ask why he doesn't look like his parents. And as I am his father, both financially and biologically, I have more of a say in what he does than any of you. And I say no."

Lynn's eyes filled with tears. "Brian, I'm his mother. I have some say in his life too."

"I have more right than you. And I say no. That's it, Lynn." He turned to Alex and Olivia. "Now. Please leave before Brian gets home from school."

Olivia left reluctantly; she could see, from the look on Alex's face, that Alex felt Brian was being a hardass about it, and so just before they stepped out the door she slipped her card into Lynn's hand. The implication was there that if she changed her mind, to call Olivia, and Lynn nodded fractionally as she slipped it into her skirt pocket.

She and Alex got in the car and she was about to pull away from the curb when a little yellow schoolbus pulled up in front of the Farrs', and a little boy got out. Short little guy, with sturdy little legs, and a huge smile that looked so much like Cam's when she was dancing that Alex made a soft sound of anguish, staring at the child. "He looks so much like her…" Brian Farr senior had been tall, fair-skinned, with blue eyes and wavy brown hair; little Brian had those blue eyes, his mother's black hair—but it curled like his father's, and his skin was honey, not like Cam's cinnamon-copper. But there was no doubt—if you knew what Cam looked like, you knew this was her son.

Olivia grabbed her cellphone impulsively and took a picture just as the little boy turned toward the bus, ostensibly to wave good-bye to a friend and she got a clear photo of his face. "For Cam," she said quietly, and she and Alex were both silent as they headed back to the precinct.

Brian Farr had made his feelings on the matter clear, and Lynn Farr didn't seem like the strong-willed type, so it was something of a surprise for Olivia a few days later when her phone rang and it was Lynn Farr's voice on the other end of the line. "Detective Benson?' she said tentatively.

"Yes, Mrs. Farr, how can I help you?"

"I've…been thinking about what you said about Brian's biological mother just wanting to see him, and I was thinking… we're going to Coney Island this weekend, and little Bri loves the carousel, he rides it every time we're there. If his mother would like to see him…maybe..." Her words trailed off, but Olivia knew what she was trying to say.

"A chance meeting between two old friends?"

Lynn sounded relieved. "Something…something like that. Just so she can see him. Not too long, because Brian's going to be with us, but if he doesn't know who she is…"

"What time are you going to be there?"

"We're planning on getting there around eleven in the morning, and we should finish up at the carousel. We always make that our last stop when we're there."

"I'll let Cam know," Olivia promised, then said quietly, "Mrs. Farr…thank you. It will mean a lot to Corporal Arlington."

"I know," Lynn said, just as quietly. "I know, because I can't have kids myself and I understand how she must feel. That's the only reason I'm doing this."

Olivia's next call was to a number that she knew by heart by now; Clayton's personal number. It took only a moment for him to understand what she was saying, and he whooped—a burst of unrestrained enthusiasm completely inappropriate for a two-star General, but hey, he was human too. "Hold on a minute, let me call Cam and Shana," and moments later Olivia was explaining to both the women that Lynn Farr was tacitly allowing Cam to see her son.

"I…I don't know what to say," Cam said finally, almost whispering. "I want to see him so much, but…is it going to hurt more if I see him?"

"Cam, for God's sake. Stop thinking about everyone else and think of yourself just once, okay? You wanted to see him, and now you have a chance. And of course Clayton's going to give you a day pass off base to go to Coney Island?" Her voice rose at the end of the sentence, as a question.

Clayton sighed. "Yes, I'm going to give you a day pass." Then, more quietly, "Alex said the big trial—the seven people she's trying all at once—starts Monday and I want to give Cam some down time. A weekend pass and a day at Coney Island sounds perfect." He knew how much of a strain the trials were on Cam, with the added burden of going through the scar treatments. She'd lost weight again, her dress uniform was definitely looser than it had been before all of this started, and Olivia was keeping him apprised of her condition on the nights when Cam stayed overnight at Liv's apartment. Not that he didn't already hear an earful from Shana herself. "I'll even give Charlie a pass too."

And so it was that two days later Cam, Charlie, Shana, and Snake Eyes found themselves at Coney Island. Charlie introduced Cam to corn dogs, Shana introduced her to funnel cakes, and Cam confessed her love for cotton candy, whereupon Snake Eyes bought her a huge spool of it—and both men watched their girls in amusement as Shana and Cam got thoroughly sticky (and completely delighted) enjoying the sugary treat.

She'd never been on a Ferris wheel before, and while Snake Eyes and Charlie preferred to keep their feet firmly on the ground, Shana and Cam rode it twice, pointing out New York landmarks to each other that could be visible from the very top of the wheel. An archery games booth tempted her and Shana, and they both took turns trying to outdo each other in accuracy with the suction-cup tipped arrows; Shana won, but just barely. The guy running the booth handed Shana a huge stuffed dog as a prize, then, seeing dog tags around all their necks, offered Cam her choice of a consolation prize, which she chose as a stuffed brown rabbit with long droopy ears.

They approached the carousel, and Shana, Snake Eyes, and Charlie scanned the crowd, looking for a small dark-haired boy walking next to Lynn—Olivia had taken the picture from her cell phone, had it printed on glossy paper, framed it, and given it to Cam. It wasn't as good as having the boy, or being able to visit, but it was a connection, however slight, to her biological son, and Shana had confided to them privately that the picture now sat on Cam's night table. Shana herself still though Brian Farr was 'being an asshole' about not letting Cam see her son, but she didn't mention it in front of Cam.

Cam suddenly gasped—and Shana saw what she was looking at and froze, tugging on Snake Eyes' sleeve (and Charlie's) to get their attention. Cam was staring, intent, at a small boy riding a painted giraffe around and around the carousel. Short, slim, curly dark hair, blue eyes, but there was absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that this was Cam's son—he looked too much like her. High cheekbones framed a wide generous mouth that smiled often and was smiling right now as he went around—and then he saw Cam.

Shana had heard that you could instinctively recognize someone related to you even if you'd never seen them before. She understood that now, seeing the look on little Brian's face. It was startlement, puzzlement, and recognition. She was positive of that. He recognized Cam on some deep, intrinsic level that had little to do with ever having seen her before, because he hadn't.

Yet he recognized her.

The carousel stopped, and instead of getting off and going to find his Mom, he stepped up close to Cam, standing with Snake Eyes, Charlie, and Shana on the other side of the barrier that separated the rest of the amusement park from the carousel. "You look like me," he said.

There were tears streaming down Cam's face, but she was trying to smile. "And you look like me." A short silence ensued, which she tried to fill by offering him the little stuffed rabbit, which he took and hugged as he looked at her.

"Are you my egg mommy?" he asked, curiously. "My Mommy told me yesterday that I came from an egg, and even though an egg usually comes from a mom, she said that she didn't have eggs and so she got an egg from another Mommy so she and Daddy could have me. Are you my egg mommy?"

Cam was spared from answering by a shout. "Brian!" And suddenly Brian Farr, senior, was there, having run around the side of the carousel to scoop the little boy up in his arms. "I told you never to talk to strangers, Brian! What's wrong with you?"

"But she's not a stranger, Daddy, she's my egg mommy!" Brian had apparently decided the answer to his own question. His father stared at him, then turned to look at Cam, and everyone froze for a long moment.

It was Brian who finally broke the silence. "I told you I didn't want you to see my son," he said, his voice low and dangerous. "He is _my_ son. Not yours. _You_ have no right to him. If I see you near him again I will file a restraining order against you in court to keep you away from him." He seemed unmoved by the tears streaming down Cam's face, she just nodded, silently, even as little Brian started to cry, confused by the emotions of the adults around him. Brian turned away from them, and as he did, he grabbed Lynn's arm; she'd followed him around the side of the carousel and stopped, watching. "You put that crazy idea into his head about egg mommies. Come on, we're going home and we're going to have a talk!" he almost dislocated Lynn's arm as he pulled her along, until they vanished into the crowd.


	18. Chapter 47: The Gang

**Chapter 47: The Gang**

"At least I got to see him," Cam said softly, drawing in a deep shuddering breath.

"It's not fair!" Shana's green eyes flashed in anger. "You have as much right to see little Brian as his father does. You're his mother, whether he likes that fact or not!"

"But he's financially responsible for little Brian, and I'm not. I couldn't give him what his father can; a stable home, loving family, the attention he deserves."

"Financially responsible, I'm not going to argue that. Attention, not going to argue that either. But as for the loving family—did you see how he yanked Lynn's arm? He's a selfish, controlling freak!" Shana kicked viciously at one of the barrier's support poles, then cursed as the pole gave her a sore toe for her pains.

"Shana, he's my son, not yours. And I don't know why you're so upset—it's not like you have kids of your own."

It was on the very tip of Shana's tongue to tell Cam she was pregnant right then and there, but although she was hurt at the thought that Cam wouldn't understand Shana was concerned because Cam was her friend, one look at Cam's tear-streaked face made her bite her lip and stay silent. Cam's inability to have kids was a sore point at just this moment, and she didn't need Shana flinging the fact in her face by declaring that she was pregnant. Better to wait until later, when she could tell her friend in private.

The ride back to base was strained, made even harder by the fact that Shana knew the day after was the beginning of the mass trial, when Cam was going to have to face the seven people who'd paid an extortionate sum to gang-rape and torture her. She couldn't imagine how Cam must feel about that, and she didn't have the courage to broach the subject, so they were quiet all the way back to base. She saw Charlie and Snake Eyes exchange sympathetic glances with each other as they got out, but Cam forced a bright smile to her face and pretended nothing was wrong, and Shana didn't discuss it until she was in the bedroom with Snake Eyes later that night. "God, this whole thing is so damned messed up."

Snake Eyes nodded. _I agree._

"Nothing's easy for her. Nothing. Life is so damn unfair." Shana started to climb into bed, then noticed as he started to fumble something out from under the pillow and around the side of the bed. A quick furtive movement, as if he were hoping she wouldn't see it.

He'd trained her better than that.

She darted around the foot of the bed and snatched for the object he'd surreptitiously been trying to hide. For one moment, she stared at the cover in consternation, then broke into helpless laughter as she held up the book. "Seriously, sweetheart?"

Snake Eyes snatched the book from her hand, flushing a bright pink even under his scars. _Well, we are having one so I might as well prepare,_ he said, slightly defensively.

Shana bit down the laughter but little giggles were still escaping her. "Don't let any of the guys see you reading that. Except maybe Clayton, since he's a Dad now too."

His face assumed a distinctly mischievous expression. _Where do you think I got it from?_

"Who…Clayton?" Shan tried briefly to wrap her head around her stern, stoic two star General commanding officer reading _What to Expect When You're Expecting_, and gave it up after a moment. She didn't really need that in her head, thank you very much…she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to keep from laughing at him again during one of their drills.

_Have you given any thought to what you want to do?_

His next question wiped the smile off her face and she leaned back in bed, lacing her fingers behind her head as she contemplated their choices. "Well, we can't have the baby here, so either way, our career with the Joes is at an end." She opened one eye. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart."

He just shrugged.

She closed her eyes as she slowly brought up all the points she'd already worked out with herself. "We're both the same rank, so no eyebrows are going to rise when we ask for a different post. We're not going to have the same freedoms we have here—no armored suits and balaclava for you, no bodysuits and crossbows for me…but at a different base we'd be able to have our baby with us. If we ask for one in Georgia, maybe Fort Benning, we can maybe take on recruit training, and we'll also be close enough to Dad and Mom and the rest of the family that they can help watch the baby when we both have duty at the same time that we can't get out of."

_Or we can muster out and go home to the cabin in California._

She stared at him. "I thought about that, but I didn't think you'd want to leave your career. You're only, what, a few years away from being able to pull a military pension."

He grinned as his hands flashed. _What do I need a pension for when I've married a millionaire?_

She chuckled, but wagged a finger at him. "You'd be surprised just how little a million dollars actually is. It won't last forever."

_Income from the bed and breakfast._

She considered that. "The last time I looked at the account, they were doing rather well, and they've sent the rent in on time every month. There's no indication it won't continue to do well—those little tourist-type inns are pretty popular, so that extra thousand a month can be added to our income. I could take some of the restitution money and invest a little, with a good stockbroker the interest might be just enough to add to our monthly income that we can afford to leave our jobs here. But then we'd have to get jobs in California."

_We have more than enough to live on until after the baby's born. I'm pretty sure I could find a job afterwards. I've been thinking about it, and I'm used to the freedoms we have here at Joe base. Posting elsewhere would feel…restrictive. And neither one of us is getting any younger. I've spent almost twenty years in the military, you've been in for almost fifteen. You have FBI clearance, you could ask for an assignment as a local FBI agent, and get whatever you want—your credit right now with them is riding pretty high, you could write your own ticket._

"And what would you do if I decided I wanted to stay home with the baby and told you to go and work?"

_Did you know the bouncer at Europa is ex-military? I saw his dog tags the first time we were there with Alex and Olivia._

She eyed him. "Are you changing the subject? In answer…no, I didn't notice he was military." Then her brain caught up to what he was saying, and she laughed. "You? Be a bouncer?"

He shrugged. _Why not? I always liked the movie Roadhouse._

She giggled. "I don't know, I thought…maybe your own dojo."

He raised an eyebrow. _You know, that's not such a bad idea._

"I was joking!"

_I was not._

Shana sighed. "So our options are to either ask for posting at a different base, or to muster out, go home to California, and become civilians."

_Yes. And you know which one I'd prefer, but I'm going to leave the choice up to you._

Shana lay awake in the darkness long after his even, regular breathing told her he was asleep. She knew which one she'd prefer, too—she really didn't want to raise their child, whatever they were having—as a military brat. She wanted a home like she'd grown up in, stable, secure, father and mother both at home, even if her mother didn't quite understand her. And maybe someday, a little sister or brother for their baby. She didn't think she could do five kids, like her mother—but two, maybe. And with Snake Eyes around, teaching them martial arts disciplines and a house full of love…she herself was already in love with the idea.

The problem was how they were going to tell their friends, how they were going to break the news to Clayton, that he was going to lose his two best hand-to-hand combat drill sergeants. And how to tell Cam that her best friend was one, having a baby; and two, leaving.

_I promised her I'd always be there for her. And now I guess we're leaving. But we're still going to be friends, she's welcome to come out to our California cabin whenever she wants, and oh, she'd have so much fun with the baby…according to Olivia, Auggie loves her. She'd be such a great Mom…fate hasn't been kind._

She gritted her teeth. _Right now I'm the only one who has enough leisure time to attend these trials and help her de-stress afterward. I simply can't tell her I'm leaving right now. Maybe after all the trials are over, then I can tell her, but not now. She's handling too much as it is right now._

She was still pondering it as she sat in the courtroom the next morning, watching the defendants at the defense table. This was the biggest trial; there were seven defendants here, seven people who had come in a group, paying almost fifteen thousand dollars for one week with Cam. And the Parks' ledger showed they'd visited, collectively, six times—although individual members of the group had visited singly also.

Anita Curtis seemed to be the ringleader—when she spoke, all the defendants listened to her, and their lawyers too. She evidently spent time in the gym, being fit and toned, but her lips were tightly compressed, and there was a hard, steely glint in her disconcertingly pale blue eyes that spoke of a lack of compassion and empathy. The neatly cut, shoulder-bobbed brown hair was immaculate, and the suit she wore was of the latest cut and style and fit perfectly, and she was completely at ease, as though she hadn't a care in the world and she was expecting a not-guilty verdict.

Beside her was the only other woman who had ever taken advantage of the twisted playground Leo Yu had facilitated; Caroline Chapman. In contrast to Anita's cool, unconcerned exterior, Caroline was plainly nervous, biting her nails. Her short mousy-brown curls were combed neatly and confined in a headband, white blouse and dark slacks crisp and clean, with razor-sharp creases in the slacks tightly belted around her evidently-expanding waist. Not fat, but definitely getting some middle-aged spread. To all appearances she was a short plump hausfrau accused of some terrible crimes, plainly nervous, her watery blue eyes darting everywhere as if trying to take everything in at once, and she spent a lot of time leaning over and whispering to the man sitting next to her.

Tom Connolly. Caroline Chapman's husband. She'd kept her maiden name when she got married and didn't share her husband's name, and while Shana thought it might have been her own choice, she doubted it. Tom Connolly was one of the most colorless people Shana had ever seen; quiet, unassuming, average; eyes neither brown nor blue, hair sandy and mousy, average height, average weight, average everything. If he was one of only two people in a room, he would still be the last one you would notice.

And she'd heard the saying—it was the quiet ones you had to watch out for …

Andrew Gordon was a huge, burly black man, head shaved bald, carrying a cane which he leaned on only lightly and gestured with it while talking. It was used more as a prop than as an assist, and after watching him stride across the courtroom to seat himself in a chair that creaked alarmingly (it wasn't that he was fat, Shana was willing to bet he could bench her weight easily) but he was quite solidly built. And she could well imagine how terrified Cam would have been as a fifteen year old seeing this huge powerful man for the first time—and knowing from the hard look in his dark eyes that he wanted to hurt you.

Greg Lyons was also black, with a slim build that disguised the muscle. Long arms and legs corded with sinewy muscle reminded her of a runner, and the quick springy action of his stride helped that impression along. Paul Rhodes was also black, small, thin, older, with a few streaks of gray in the long dreadlocks he wore.

William Keller was definitely white. Pale white. Almost albino, light where Andrew Gordon was dark, extremely thin build, eyes of a blue so pale they almost looked silver, skin the color of eggshells, fine, wispy white-blond hair fanned out around his face in very Albert Einstein-like unkemptness.

The only thing these seven had in common was that they had all paid exorbitant sums of money for the privilege of raping and torturing a young girl—and the hard looks in their eyes, their lazy, uncaring stance, indicated to Shana that they weren't al all concerned with possibly being found guilty of the charges against them, and certainly weren't concerned about going to jail. The only one who seemed to be worried or concerned at all was Caroline Chapman, and Shana smiled to herself when she saw Alex look thoughtfully at the nervous little woman. Alex had found the weak link, and she would work that weak link until it gave.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the court, thank you for coming today. I appreciate your time and your patience." Alex stood to make her opening remarks. "The defendants you see before you represent a good cross section of American society. Black, white, male, female, from a blue-collar factory worker to a suburban housewife to an entrepreneur, CEO of his own business. They seem just like us, getting up, going to work, coming home to eat and relax and sleep.

"But there is one thing that marks them as different from you and I, and that is their disturbing penchant for young girls. Each one of these seven standing here today is accused of paying large sums of money to a facilitator for a week-long stay at a secluded western New York vacation spot, and while there, they took advantage of the 'luxury commodity' that was available for the 'discerning vacationer; a young girl.

"For these seven, one week cost nearly fifteen thousand dollars. In addition to the $1400 per person for the one week stay, they paid for a variety of other activities—hunting, fishing, camping, horseback riding—all seemingly innocuous activities for the typical vacationer, but those activities meant something much different to them than they mean to us, and to the young girl who was their victim in these twisted games. You will hear from her yourself what these activities entailed and what she suffered, and after hearing your story, I'm positive you'll feel that maximum punishment for these seven individuals is entirely appropriate." Alex sat down.

Shana was sure that each defense attorney was going to want to voice opening remarks on behalf of each client, but to her surprise, only Anita's lawyer stood. "As these defendants are all accused of the same thing, we will make this short so that we can all get on with our lives. My clients pooled their funds and paid for these vacations believing that they were going there to engage in some consensual adult activity. Certainly activities of a somewhat kinky nature, but that is hardly a crime. At no time did the prosecution's alleged victim, Corporal Cameron Arlington, inform them that she was being held captive against her will, or that her guardians were not, in fact, her guardians. They saw no sign that she was being mistreated; she had shelter, food, clothing—there was, in short, no way for them to know she was not a willing participant. Please keep that in mind, and I believe, at the end of it, you'll find that none of the defendants sitting here can be held responsible for the reprehensible, horrible crime of which they are accused.

"My client, Anita Curtis, has been charged as the ringleader of this group—she was the one who made all the arrangements for this group of friends to visit the western New York retreat, and in addition to visiting here on six separate occasions as part of this group, she also arranged for herself and her friend Caroline Chapman to visit on three occasions separately from the rest of the group. She paid, and paid well, for the services of which she took advantage—and I will reiterate here that had she known the submissive who accepted money was not a willing participant, nor of age to consent to such activities, she would have used her power and influence to remove the girl from further harm herself, and I firmly believe that, while you may find some of the activities she participated personally repugnant, when taken in the context of the submissive being willing, you will find nothing criminal in her actions."


	19. Chapter 48: Prejudice

**Chapter 48: Prejudice**

"Prosecution calls as its first witness Corporal Cameron Arlington."

The door at the back of the courtroom opened, and Cam walked in. Her head was held high, but her shoulders were slightly hunched, and her lips were tightly compressed. She answered 'I do' in a clear, though low, voice when she was sworn, in, but as she sat down and clasped her hands tightly in her lap, Shana saw how white her knuckles were and knew how nervous she had to be, and her heart ached for her friend.

"Please tell us, in your own words, what happened to you." Alex's voice was gentle in the quiet courtroom.

The judge, an older man with silver hair and piercing blue eyes, cleared his throat. "Before we begin, let me lay down a few ground rules. I want no displays of emotion, nothing that will unfairly prejudice the jury. You will keep your account factual and relevant, avoid using crude or slang terms, and will refrain from stating any opinions. I only want facts. Is that clear?" Cam nodded once, her face pale, then said quietly, "Yes, Your Honor."

Shana was seething, and from the rigid set to Alex's shoulders, she knew the blond lawyer felt the same. There was absolutely no way Cam could get through describing what these seven people had done to her without showing emotion, and she didn't understand how the judge could ask Cam to do that. Would he grant her breaks during her testimony?

"Please begin."

Cam took a deep breath, laced her fingers in her lap. "I was fifteen and a half when I first met Ms. Curtis and her …friends," she said, although Shana was positive she had been about to say something else. "My Aunt and Uncle came downstairs to my basement to tell me there was a large group of people coming, there would be seven clients, and they expected me to be a 'good girl' for them."

Alex said quickly, "One moment here. Prosecution would like to make it clear to the court that the people who Corporal Arlington refers to as her 'Aunt' and Uncle' are actually not related to her at all. DNA tests on both Corporal Arlington and Mr. Leo Yu, the biological brother of Corporal Arlington's supposed Aunt, show no kinship match at all, thereby eliminating the woman Corporal Arlington called 'Aunt' from being in any way related to her. The military authorities who tried to find a guardian for this orphaned child at Osan Air Force Base were deliberately duped by the Parks into giving them guardianship of this vulnerable child for this express purpose—to exploit her for material gain." Alex had apparently decided not to point out that the Parks were North Korean spies. It wasn't relevant to this case anyway. "A child who no one would miss, who had no relatives, friends or family to care about her or look into what became of her." Not entirely true, but the Hammonds hadn't come looking for her, a fact that still made Shana a little upset with them. If they truly thought she was a 'daughter' to them, they should have followed up…

However, it was done and over, and there was nothing she could do about it. She forced her attention back to the trial in front of her, where Alex was gently prompting Cam to continue. "I woke up that morning, and I looked up, and there were so many people in the basement...I wore a leather collar with one end of a chain locked to it, and the other end of the chain was wrapped around one of the metal rails at the head of the bed., and what woke me up was Anita Curtis unlocking the end of the chain from the bed. She yanked on it, pulling me off the bed, and when I hit the floor she told me that when I was in her presence she wanted me crawling on the floor. I was never to stand upright unless she specifically ordered me to. And then she sat down on my bed, and opened her legs, and she…told me…to…" her voice broke. "She told me to…to…pleasure her."

A low murmur around the courtroom. Cam swallowed hard, trying to keep her voice steady, staring very hard at the top of the witness stand that she was sitting behind, fighting tears. "she was the first woman who had ever come as a client, and when I first saw her I thought that maybe I could tell her I wasn't here willingly, and maybe she would help me escape, take me out of there…but the minute she asked me to do…that…to her, I knew she'd never help me."

A deep breath. "I had never before been faced with a woman, and I…I had no idea what to do. Anita and Caroline taught me, making me perform for them for hours on end. I hated it, I hated every minute of it, but they wouldn't let me go until I did…what they wanted. And then when they got tired of me, the others would…take their turns.

"They paid for what was called a 'full package'—hunting, hiking, fishing, camping, horseback—in addition to just staying in and using the things in the basement to hurt me."

Alex interrupted. "Please explain for the benefit of the court what each of these activities means."

"Hunting meant I would spend an afternoon running through the woods around the cabin while they hunted me with dart guns and darts tipped with some kind of paralytic agent. Papa taught me, back when we were at Osan, how to climb trees to evade pursuers, how to hide, evade, cover my tracks…but after the first few times my Aunt and Uncle understood what I was doing and they would tie my hands behind my back so I couldn't climb trees, they would strap these huge…things…into my body so I couldn't run without pain, even put electrified probes into me so that I would scream when they jolted me and make me easier to find…" and she broke here, tears flowing down her cheeks.

The judge said harshly, "May I remind the witness that the rules in my courtroom are no untoward displays of emotion?"

"I'm sorry," And Cam tried to pull herself together. "I'm sorry…this is really hard…"

"You are supposed to be a soldier and have control. So exercise it. I want no shameful displays of emotion to sway the jury." Shana was flushed as red as her hair, and she could see that Alex had gone very pale, with two very bright spots of color high on her cheeks—she was pissed, and it showed in her voice as she stood, drawing the attention of everyone in the courtroom. "I must protest, Your Honor," she said, her voice glacial. "It is absolutely impossible for the witness to recount her experiences without emotion. What happened to her was extremely traumatic and having to relive it over again as she recounts the incidents for the court simply compounds the emotional impact. It will be impossible for her to get through without displaying any kind of emotion."

"Well, prosecution should have thought of that before bringing her forth as a witness, or even arresting these seven citizens for these alleged crimes they have committed. You have not prepared your witness well, Ms. Cabot."

"Your Honor, she is a woman, not a robot, and all of this happened when she was very young. I would not be able to testify in such matters as this without some emotional disturbance, and neither, I would suspect, could you!"

The judge tapped his gavel. "I am hereby fining Corporal Arlington for contempt of court and Prosecutor Cabot for the same."

And now even Cam was pissed. Shana saw the look in her eyes, and the way she opened her mouth to speak, only to have Alex give her a look to silence her. "Your Honor, I request an audience in your chambers."

For a moment, it looked like the judge was going to demur, but then he sighed and tapped his gavel. "I will see prosecution in my chambers."

Alex waited until the door was closed before she turned to hm. She tried to keep her tone respectful, but there was an edge of steel in her voice as she said, "What do you have against my witness?" He started to open her mouth, and she, seeing his lips shaping the word 'no', said relentlessly, "Don't say no. Your demands on my witness are unreasonable, and I think it stems from some personal bias. What do you have against her?"

He folded his arms. "You want to know, Ms Cabot? Fine. Your witness is an illegal."

Alex kept a tight grip on her temper. "She is not illegal. She proved herself innocent of those charges with the adoption paper she provided Homeland Security, and she's also been proven to definitely be a citizen by DNA, which links her DNA to that of the Iroquois tribe where she lives upstate. She has proved it, so you can't say she is illegal."

"Fine. She was illegal. Its people like her that are taking rights away from citizens and I for one don't think she should be testifying, her word shouldn't be taken over American citizens like Ms. Curtis and her friends out there."

Alex leaned forward, and she didn't even try for politeness this time. "Did you not hear me, Your Honor. She's been proved a citizen both by documentation AND by DNA. Her DNA clearly has the same markers that others in her tribe do. She is part Iroquois, and that makes her more legal than you or I as her people were here before ours were! According to Frederick Arlington's best friend in the Air Force, Arthur Hammond, he did have a paternity test done to find out if Cam really was his daughter, as her unknown mother claimed, and according to Art Hammond, that paternity test showed he was indeed her father. The entire episode with Immigration was unnecessary and as she has now proved her legality, a non-issue!"

The Judge's expression didn't change, and Alex gritted her teeth. "I am filing a motion to remove you as a judge and assign someone else to the case per your continued display of prejudice." And without waiting to be dismissed, she turned on her heel and stalked out.

Cam was sitting beside Shana in the front bench, waiting for her, and she said shortly, "We're leaving. Our day's over. Let's go." Wordlessly, both women got up off the bench and followed her out of the courtroom. Behind them, Alex heard the door to the judge's chambers open, but she didn't turn around, didn't falter. All three of them fell in step and marched out to her Mustang.

It wasn't until they were seated and Alex was pulling out that Cam said quietly, "Alex..what happened?"

Alex blew out her breath. "The judge doesn't like you."

Shana blinked. "How can he not like her, he doesn't even know her?!"

"He's stuck on her 'being illegal'."

Shana's green eyes hardened. "But she was cleared of those charges and released."

Alex shook her head. "Didn't make a difference. Even told him about the DNA test we did with Cam's DNA and Jennifer Aiennatha's, and the paternity test Frederick Arlington had done a long time ago. Didn't make a difference to him, the word itself matters more. He can't see past the word to look objectively at the circumstances that caused her to be tagged that way. To him, undocumented means illegal, and he either can't or doesn't want to understand that undocumented and illegal are two separate categories of people. I'm filing a motion against him and asking for him to recuse himself so another judge can take the case."

"It's not fair," Shana pounded her fist on the dash. "She was cleared of all those charges. How can they still hold that against her?"

"I see it a lot, unfortunately—the worst are those who say all illegals should be shot on sight, even victims of human trafficking and child sex slavery. It doesn't make sense to me either, but we'll see how this goes."

And to her utter relief, it wasn't as much of a disruption as she feared. The judge simply recused himself—she had no idea how he explained the reason, nor did she care—and two days later when they walked into the courtroom, there was Judge Donnelly, sitting in the judge's seat.

Apparently Cam felt better with Liz there. And Liz had already heard about the various activities, although she hadn't heard all of them. "Horseback activities listed on the brochure involved putting me up on a wooden horse, the kind used during the Inquisition. Most of the time they'd tie my hands behind me, then pull them up to force me to lean further forward, and that…hurt more. They'd tie weights to my ankles to increase pressure on my…my private parts…or they'd whip or beat me while I was 'riding'. They also forced electrified probes into my body to make me move around on top of the horse more, and when they finally let me off so they could rape me, I'd be so raw and swollen down there that just touching me hurt.

"And fishing…they would tie my hands over my head, then tie a heavy weight around my ankles, and throw me into the water at the end of the pier at the lake. They'd keep me under until I was choking on the water and frantic, then they'd pull me up, wait until I got all the water out of my lungs, and drown me again. Although this didn't produce pain, the clients who liked this were the ones who got off on my crying and begging. And after a few times…I'd promise to do anything to not get dropped again. I hated feeling like I was drowning. Fortunately there weren't a lot of people who wanted to perform that particular activity—it wasn't as satisfying when they weren't seeing my face as they were hurting me.

"Camping basically involved anything that they could do to me outdoors. Tying me between trees and whipping me until I passed out; or tying me over a large stone—there was a huge boulder at one of the 'campsites', and it had eyebolts fixed into the sides. They'd tie me face down over the stone, then whip me. I'd twist, and my front would get very raw and sore, and then when they got on top of me to…to rape me, it would hurt…and they'd pour alcohol on the raw spots…" even Judge Donnelly winced at that.

"They'd make me hike to the campsite, and from the site, no matter how tired or in pain I was. Often I'd be carrying some of their gear. But mainly they just stuck around, tied me up and whipped me or electrocuted me, or tied me up in really cramped positions and just left me for hours and hours. Ms. Anita did that a lot. For her, it was about hurting me until I willingly did whatever she wanted me to do." Her voice dropped. "I'd never thought about whether I liked girls or boys. It never even crossed my mind. But Ms. Anita told me I was…really good…that I learned quickly and she said she thought I was a natural lesbian."

"And that bothered you?' Alex asked quietly.

"I…I think it sort of did." Cam was visibly steeling herself for something. "I didn't know about…the birds and bees…before all this happened. I was too busy studying in school, and dancing every minute I could. And my Aunt and Uncle never talked about it, and none of the other clients ever cared if I…if I…got anything out of it. Ms. Anita was the first one to tell me that sex was supposed to feel good …" her face was a bright, painful red, and Shana wished that she didn't have to go through this. "And I told her that I'd never, ever felt any kind of pleasure from anything anyone ever did, and..it sort of turned into a game for her, to see if she could get a response from me."


	20. Chapter 49: Mistake

**Chapter 49: Mistake**

The courtroom was silent for long moments after that particular revelation. Cam's voice was what finally broke the silence.

She went on to describe what each one had done.

The courtroom was quiet for long moments after she finished, broken at last by Liz. "Court will recess for lunch." Even the tap of her gavel sounded muffled, and Cam barely waited for it to fall before she was out of the witness stand and out of the courtroom.

Shana was out of the bench and in the hall scant moments thereafter, just in time to see Cam disappear into the women's bathroom just down the hall. As she pushed open the door and stepped inside, she heard the sound of sobbing—and traced the sound to the extra-large handicapped stall at the end. Cam hadn't closed the door; Shana stepped in, and disregarding however dirty the floor might be, went to her knees and gathered Cam into her arms, hugging her. "Sssh. Ssh, it's okay, go ahead and cry. This whole mess has been horrific." And Cam cried. Cried so hard her whole body shook, left wet tear stains on Shana's dress blouse, and Shana just sat and held her, hushing her, rocking her a little, whispering a soft Gaelic lullaby to her even as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed Alex's cell phone number. She didn't want to leave Cam, but she wanted to ask Alex if Alex could get a recess for the rest of the afternoon—Cam was too upset, and she'd had a rough night the night before, at the scar treatment center.

"Oh, isn't this sweet," came a slow drawl, and Shana whipped her head around, barely noticing that her thumb hit the 'call' button, to see Anita Curtis. She felt Cam tense in her arms, heard a soft whimper; Cam was afraid of this woman, still, after all these years, and Shana's temper boiled over as she turned to face the other woman, eyes blazing green fire. Her phone clattered to the floor as she stood, fists clenched.

"Get out of here," she snarled. "Get out. You're not allowed to talk to her. It's the middle of trial. Get out."

Anita didn't move. "So are you her new Mistress now?" she purred. "Sure seem like the dominant type to me. Does she perform for you as well as she did for me?"

"You bitch," Shana had never wanted to hit someone so badly in her life. "You absolute stone-hearted bitch. Don't try to tell me that you didn't know Cam was too young for this, don't try to tell me you didn't know she wasn't willing."

"Oh, I knew," Anita said cheerfully. "We all knew. That made it all the sweeter. Andrew loved that look of terror in her eyes-made him feel like more of a man, I guess, made him feel more powerful. Caroline wasn't really into it, she came because she wanted to see Tom satisfied, and she was curious what girl on girl sex felt like. Tom just wanted to be able to screw a female without having to worry if he was hurting her or not; he didn't care how old or young she was. Paul and William didn't care much, one way or another—they spent most of the day up at the cabin getting stoned. Greg was the same—he put in a little effort to join in, but he pretty much got his kicks watching me and Andrew hurt her. So does she perform for you? I put enough time trying to train her. She was a blank slate, completely ignorant of how to pleasure a woman, and she was so deliciously revolted by everything I forced her to do. All that fear and confusion in those innocent little baby eyes."

A trill of harsh laughter. "So in answer to your question—of course I knew she was underage, Leo Yu told us after he made the arrangements, and I knew he told the truth the first time I saw her—skinny little thing with an absolutely flat chest, no breasts, no hips—Andrew had to tie ropes around her breasts just to make them swell large enough for him to play punching bag with. We thought about injecting them with saline to make them bigger so we could have more fun with them." She laughed. "Well, fun for us, probably not fun for her."

Shana's clenched fist rose, pulled back, seemingly of its own accord; she'd never, ever been so blindly furious in her life, and if she'd had a gun, or her sword, or her beloved crossbow, she would have used it on Anita Curtis at just that moment, and to hell with knowing she'd go to jail. It would be worth it to take this bitch out, this woman who'd tortured Cam and felt absolutely no remorse for it whatsoever.

Cam lunged upward from her sitting position on the floor, with a choked, "Shana, no!" And at the same time, the door flew open, and there stood Liz Donnelly, Alex Cabot, and Anita's own defense lawyer, as well as the court bailiff and two policemen.

"Don't do it, Shana," Alex said levelly, her eyes fixed on Anita Curtis as she strode across the bathroom floor, preceded by the two cops, who took Anita's arms roughly. "Let the law take care of her now. " She turned to Anita. "We heard everything."

Shana gaped at her, then realized what happened as Cam picked up her cellphone from the floor. "I was trying to call you to ask if you could ask for a recess for the rest of the day, Cam's too stressed to handle anymore of this today. And then Anita walked in, and I must have hit the call button…"

"You did," Liz Donnelly's crisp, cool voice cut in. "Alex dropped her phone as she was trying to answer it, and the speaker activated when it hit the floor. We heard everything Anita Curtis told you. She's negated her whole defense strategy by telling you she knew Cam wasn't of age; she also blew it for the rest of her group too."

Anita's eyes had been getting larger with each word. As Liz Donnelly finished speaking, she lunged for Shana and Cam. "You bitch, you set me up!" The two cops grabbed a firm hold of her arms, keeping her from actually connecting with Shana or Cam.

Shana lost it. "I did not set you up. Your own pride and ego did that all on your own. The minute you walked in here and saw Cam and I, you should have known you were supposed to walk away. I'm a lawyer too, I know how this goes, and I would have reported you anyway for witness tampering the minute you opened your mouth. The fact that you incriminated yourself is a plus…the fact that the judge, the prosecutor, and your own lawyer heard it…priceless. Enjoy jail, Anita Curtis, enjoy it for a long time. Cam is free, free of you and your twisted crew and you will now get a taste for what captivity against your will is like. Maybe you'll finally understand what you put her through, though I doubt it." And she watched the cops take Anita away, her lawyer hurrying after her.

Liz smiled once, briefly, at Cam, then said "Alex." And Alex turned and followed her out of the bathroom, leaving Cam and Shana alone.

"I can't believe she did that," Cam drew in a shuddering breath as she straightened her dress blouse and smoothed down her skirt. Shana did the same, noting absently that during her conversation with Anita, the tears Cam had left on her shirt had dried. "Okay I think we're both together now. Let's head back to the courtroom."

When everyone involved in the case was back in the courtroom (except the absent Anita and her lawyer, and her co-defendants—Gordon, Chapman, Connolly, Lyons, Rhodes, and Keller—were looking slightly uneasy as to why she wasn't there, and even their lawyers were looking around for Anita's lawyer. Liz Donnelly put an end to the speculation after she tapped her gavel. "You are no doubt looking for your co-defendant, Anita Curtis. She incriminated herself by an excited utterance while we were on break; I heard it, her lawyer heard it, Prosecution heard it, and two witnesses heard it. In that excited utterance she also incriminated all of you. As I am now a witness to what was said and may be called upon to testify, I am recusing myself. Court is therefore suspended in this case until a new judge can be appointed." She leveled a hard look at each of the defendants. "I advise all of you to speak with Ms. Curtis as to what she said, and plan your strategy accordingly, because what she said was pretty clear and not at all open to misinterpretation." She tapped the gavel again."Court is dismissed for the day."

Cam was stunned by the sudden swift turn of events, and was silent for half the ride back to base. It wasn't until they were on the Narrows bridge leading out to Fort Wadsworth that she finally broke the silence. "I still can't believe it."

"Believe it." Alex grinned. "The screen on my cell phone broke when it hit the floor, but I really can't bring myself to be annoyed about it at the moment. It was like it all happened in slow motion, the phone fell out of my hand, and it hit the floor on the side that has the speaker button, and even as I picked it up we heard Anita's voice saying 'Isn't this sweet,' and then asking you if Cam performed for you the way she did for Anita. I thought Liz was going to be sick, and her lawyer…oh, he just turned so red. Apparently he'd already warned her not to talk to Cam, but apparently she couldn't resist." A smile. "Good move, Shan, reminding her that she wasn't supposed to talk to Cam. We all heard it, and there's no way she can defend this move by saying she didn't know."

"I wasn't thinking about that," Shana said, her voice hard. "I wasn't thinking at all. I wanted to hit her so bad, God, if I'd had my swords or a gun or my crossbow at just that moment I would have killed her. I would have killed her and never thought twice about it." She reflected for a moment. "I still want to kill her."

"Yeah, well, once she gets to prison you won't have to worry about her anymore. Child molesters are the bottom of every prison's hierarchy, and she's a white-collar executive, not a hardened criminal. She'll be prey for every woman who has a girl child who has been molested. And she paid money to be able to do it too.

"But for right now, everything freezes. A new judge has to be assigned to the case because Liz is now a witness. Anita has to find a new lawyer because her lawyer is now a witness—I am most definitely going to call him as a witness to what we all heard in Liz's office, and you're now a witness too, so you'll have to testify to how the verbal confrontation started. And all of that is going to take time, so while that's in progress, we'll tackle another trial."

"Who is it this time?" Shana asked, with a sidelong glance at Cam. Cam had tensed, very slightly, in her seat, looking apprehensive.

"David Chan, Han Zhu, and Zhang Li."

An expression of relief crossed Cam's face. "It won't be too bad. Alex…can't you plead them out?"

"They wouldn't take a plea deal. I tried." Alex sounded regretful.

"Why?" Shana asked, horrified. "Don't you want them to…" she stopped, because Cam was shaking her head.

"Shana, in comparison to what Anita and Andrew and some of the worst clients did to me, they were good to me. All they wanted to do was tie me up in rope and take pictures. They didn't rape me, they didn't make me bleed, the minute I begged them for a break they let me down. Yes, they whipped me, and it hurt, but nowhere near as bad as when Anita, or Andrew, or some of the other clients did it."


	21. Chapter 50: News

**Chapter 50: News**

Shana understood, intellectually, what Cam said, but she still found it hard not to resent Chan, Zhu, and Li when she saw them in the courtroom a couple of days later. However, Cam herself didn't appear to be stressed as much about this, and didn't fall apart emotionally on the witness stand.

And what she said didn't indicate they'd treated her with the same level of cruelty Anita and Andrew had displayed. Because they wanted someone whose skin didn't have marks or bruises, Cam's Aunt and Uncle gave her a break of a week for the bruises and marks left from her last client to disappear, and that first time they'd seen her, as they jabbered on in Chinese around her, her stomach had rumbled because she was hungry (her Aunt and Uncle didn't let her eat for a whole day before new clients arrived, just in case the client wanted to do something to her that might make her stomach rebel. One man had stopped immediately, given her clothes back to her, and signaled to her Aunt and Uncle that he wanted her to eat before they started. And what they wanted to do wasn't all that bad either; tying her up and suspending her in ropes, taking pictures.

They did use the horse, but never for unbearably long periods of time, and they provided cool compresses for the swelling and tenderness after they let her down. They gave her food and water, let her sleep as long as she wanted to in the morning, and would even ask her, in halting English, when she cried, if it was too much, could they go on or did she really want to stop. When her muscles cramped from being tied too long and returning circulation made her cry, there was video of one of them actually sitting on the floor with her and hugging her as she cried while the other two rubbed her limbs to restore blood flow.

It was that that finally made Shana let go of some of her anger. She couldn't forgive them, not entirely, but they had been reasonably careful with her, had been humane and considerate, and never evinced the kind of callous disregard for Cam's health and well-being that others had. If she was still hungry after the small meals her Aunt and Uncle brought, they would either insist to the couple that they bring Cam more food, or they would supply deficiencies themselves—Cam described, with a soft smile, an incident where Li had gone into town and brought back burgers, fries, sodas, and ice cream for all of them…and her. She didn't understand their Chinese, and they didn't understand what little Korean she had command of, but they knew a little English. And she'd managed to communicate to them that she was underage, that she was there against her will, and she'd begged them for help, begged them to please help her escape. But that they wouldn't do.

"They were kind enough to her within the limits of what they could do without inconveniencing themselves, but they weren't about to report the fact that she was underage and a prisoner to the authorities because they'd implicate themselves while they were at it," Shana told Snake Eyes one evening as they were lying in bed. Usually he was flat on his back with her curled around him; but she'd gradually started to notice that curling up on her side wasn't as comfortable as it used to be, due to the tiny bump that was starting to grow between her hip bones (she was right about two months along, by Doc's estimates), and Snake Eyes had taken to curling around her, letting her head rest on the inside of his arm as his hands caressed her stomach. He'd become absolutely fascinated with her belly, pushing the hem of her shirts up to expose the tiny bump as often as he could, touching it, stroking it.

"You know, if you enjoy doing that so much, you could start putting lotion on your hands and applying that to my tummy while you're stroking it. Liv gave me this stuff that's supposed to minimize stretch marks, and she told me I should start putting it on every night."

Snake Eyes smiled and sat up, and moments latter Shana was grinning blissfully as he started rubbing the lotion into her stomach. It smelled like vanilla—cocoa butter, that's what the bottle said—and having her husband rub it into her stomach was…incredibly sensual.

"Cam's not really angry with them because in comparison with what some of the other clients did, they were gentle with her, but I can't forgive them. The one thing she really needed was to get out of there and they wouldn't even do that for her."

The bitterness lasted through the next trial, Fumiko Ozawa, Takahiro Nori, and Ichiro Imatsu. They were Japanese, and they had not only paid for her for a week, they'd paid to come across the ocean supposedly on a business trip, for her. They didn't rape her; there was no sex. What there was was a lot of pain.

They were friends with Leo Yu, and, as it turned out, had come to the vacation cabin at his express request (and received a price discount.) Their purpose was to train her to accept pain; they'd been one of the first customers Yu had arranged to come, and they'd come twice a year, as 'training reinforcement', as their interpreter explained.

Although Cam had some ability to ignore discomfort in order to do what she was told (she had to, to be a ballet dancer; dancing en pointe was neither easy nor pain-free) but quite another matter was to stand still while people hit her with whips and other implements on some of the most sensitive areas of her body. These three were supposed to teach her that. They never raped her; what they did was give her orders to hold still so they could hurt her, and when fear or pain made her violate the order, they would hurt her worse.

There were 'training videos' they gave Leo Yu to use as promotional/marketing material. These videos showed Cam being told to assume different positions so they could hit the tenderest parts of her body; if she broke position they punished her with something worse; electricity. She hated being shocked, she was terrified of the pain that electrocution cause, and she would beg to do just about anything to avoid it. They used that against her, threatening her with electrical punishment if she didn't remain still for what they wanted to do. Although Shana knew that an ability to ignore personal discomfort and outright pain in order to complete a mission or comply with an order was something every soldier needed to be able to do—and had Cam not been able to do this neither one of them would have left Kennedy's island alive—she couldn't imagine a more brutal way of training the lesson into someone. And Cam had only been a child…

Charlie attended some of the trials—whenever he could get out of duty. And Shana had no idea how he managed to sit in the courtroom listening to all of this. She couldn't imagine, if it had been Snake Eyes detailing this level of incredibly dehumanizing abuse, she'd be ready to tear something apart every night. Charlie sat there, listening to all of it, and although his expression was stony and hard, at the end of the day he took her in his arms in a huge hug and just did his best to wipe all of the negative memories, thoughts, and emotions away with his own love. They went to the scar clinic together, showed up at Olivia's apartment together, slept together on the spare bed in her spare bedroom, and got up the next day, to repeat the process.

But it was wearing on Cam. And although it started as a random thought, the conviction soon crystallized for Shana that Cam would be happier as a civilian, that staying in the military, with its rigid rules and order and regulations, wasn't going to be good for her in the long term. Her life had thus far been nothing but; she desperately needed some time where she could just be herself, and that was not going to happen while in the military. The weight she'd gained during their honeymoon was dropping, slowly, but noticeably. Stress was putting lines on her face, and she looked older, somehow, a shadow of the laughing, happy, carefree girl that Shana had seen on their whirlwind honeymoon.

And a lot of that was due to the trials, too. Shana wanted to call an end to the whole thing, badly wanted to tell Alex to drop the whole thing. Let the rest go, untried; putting them in prison wasn't worth Cam's health, life, or sanity. But she knew it was hopeless; Cam herself had put those wheels in motion herself, and Cam was the only one who could put an end to it.

Or so she thought.

It was during the trial of Joseph and Christina DiSabato that she first heard of it; both DiSabato and his wife had just been diagnosed with a particularly virulent form of syphilis. And they deserved it, too…they were the 'preacher' and his 'wife' who had come to play role-playing games with Cam; using Cam as the 'temptress' who lured Joseph into 'sin'; and then when Christina found out, Joseph apologized, blamed it on Cam, and both punished her for being a temptress. She had to read the Bible aloud, unfaltering, as both reverend and wife punished her physically.

Since this form of syphilis could remain dormant for five years or more, Shana was instantly worried that Cam might have gotten it…but her blood tests came up negative. Although Doc explained it away by saying that the DiSabatos might have contracted it somewhere else, three other people who had used the twisted playground that Leo Yu and Cam's Aunt and Uncle had provided were soon diagnosed with the same kind of syphilis; one, Cyril Etherington, was pronounced unable to stand trial because his physical condition had deteriorated so quickly. He'd come to see Cam three times, each time for a full week, and he'd paid for hunting and camping activities too—his trial had been one of the ones that Cam had been dreading, and when Alex told her that he wasn't going to live to stand trial, she hadn't been upset at all.

But Shana was starting to suspect something else was at work, especially when a Frenchman, Jean Pierre Coquillette, and an Italian, Enrico Della Ragione, both of whom were supposed to be the last ones scheduled for trial, died before a judge could even be assigned to their case. Coquillette had paid for a full package, all for himself; and he'd visited five times, for a grand total of nineteen thousand dollars, and Ragione, while he hadn't paid for any extra activities, had spent almost his entire time at the cabin beating and raping Cam—she'd gotten almost no food or water, and virtually no sleep during his visit, and he had in fact been charged extra by Cam's Aunt and Uncle because at the conclusion of each of his four visits Cam had been virtually unresponsive and had needed almost a full two weeks to recover. Shana had been sickened at the thought of that amount of money—and heartened at the thought that Cam wouldn't have to testify in that one either.

"Cam…we never discussed it, but…could that Indian curse of yours be working?" she flushed as she said it. "Native American, I mean…whatever you did back on our honeymoon, asking the Goddess for justice for you…do you think…?"

Cam shrugged. "I don't know, Shana. It could be the Goddess's way of evening the score in Her own time and Her own way…but it could also be coincidence. I just don't know."

But when Shana quietly brought it up to Alex later, under strict confidentiality—she didn't want Charlie or Snake Eyes hearing about this—Alex was a great deal less delicate or hesitant about it. "I may be a pragmatic lawyer," she said thoughtfully, "But I've seen a lot of things about this case, about Cam's whole life…that just defies explanation. The fact that she could go through this much, and still essentially remain a whole person, that she hasn't let it sour or warp or make her bitter…that she could survive that cabin fire and not go insane with the pain while she healed…that she could have found her father's people, and survive, and come here to your unit, where her direct action made a difference in whether you lived or died…I can't explain that, Shana. And I also can't explain how all of these very disparate people could come down with the same strain of venereal disease, the only common link being Cam, and yet she is completely unaffected."

Doc had even done a blood test on Charlie, to eliminate the possibility that Cam had somehow been a carrier, yet immune to it herself. Nope. Charlie was clean and healthy, and so was Cam…apart from the stress-related physical deterioration.

"So while I can't explain it, I won't dismiss it either. Anita has called for a doctor, by the way, though she won't say what's wrong with her."

"Anita…" Shana's eyes lit up with dark delight. "And has Andrew Gordon also come down with some inexplicable sickness?"

"He has," Alex nodded. "So has David Biehl, whose trial is coming up. He's another one who paid an enormous sum of money—thirty-one thousand dollars for eight visits. In fact, he's the one who constructed the wooden horse Cam was tortured on, came up with the winch lift system for the 'fishing' pier, and built whipping posts and the various frameworks top which Cam could be tied and hurt. And Allan Singletary, too, has come down with an 'illness'—he's the one who constructed all the electrical apparatus that was later used to torture her with. I can't say for sure, Shana, but for me, it's too much of a coincidence. Something's at work here, I'm just not prepared to say what."

But Shana was. She was firmly convinced that Cam's plea for justice had been heard, somehow, by Something or Someone out there, and that Someone had chosen to make her life just a little easier by removing some of the worst offenders from the list of people she still had to testify against.

Not that she had a lot of time to think about the topic, either…she had her own physical condition to worry about. Although it seemed like it had taken a long time for that little bump to show between her hipbones, now that it was showing it seemed to be growing exponentially. "I swear, I can almost see it growing," she complained to Snake Eyes one evening as she tried to wiggle into a pair of soft drawstring-waist sweatpants…and had to untie the strings in order to expand the waistline. It was the first sign that she was getting bigger, and although she hadn't yet had to order fatigues with a larger waist, she'd noticed the other day that her skinsuits—the black armored suits she and Snake eyes wore—was getting a little hard to wiggle up past her hips, and Allie had observed just that morning, as Shana demolished a double helping of pancakes at morning mess, that it looked like Shana was gaining weight.

Snake Eyes just smiled and kept rubbing her belly with lotion, but Shana was concerned. Accordingly, a couple of days later, when she got back from the courthouse after getting a guilty verdict for the DiSabatos, she dragged Snake Eyes along with her to see Doc.

Doc looked surprised when she came in. "I wasn't expecting you for another couple of weeks," he said, raising an eyebrow. "Is something wrong?"

"Well….I know this is going to sound silly, but…I think I'm gaining too much weight too quickly. My stomach seems to be getting too big, too quickly. I don't know if I'm just eating too much and not getting enough exercise, and I'm trying not to eat so much as a result, but I'm a little worried."

"Well, it's about time for an ultrasound to check on the gender of the baby, so go ahead, hop up on the table and let me have a look." Shana obligingly lay down, pulling her loose t-shirt up over her baby bump as Doc brought over the little wheeled cart that had the ultrasound equipment on it. "Snake Eyes, if you're going to hover and get in the way, make yourself useful, all right?" Doc finally snapped in exasperation as he handed Snake Eyes the tube of ultrasound gel. "Squirt that all over Shana's stomach. Generously. The ultrasound probe has to be able to slide freely over her skin." Shana giggled hysterically at Snake Eyes' delighted expression—and the eagerness with which he applied himself to the task.

Doc pressed the probe firmly, though not uncomfortably, into Shana's stomach and started moving it around. He stopped a couple of times with a noncommittal 'hmmph', but didn't say anything until he had put the probe up and handed a tissue to Snake Eyes. "Go ahead and wipe all that gel off her stomach." Then he paused.

"What is it? What did you find? Is everything normal with the baby?" Shana burst out, unable to restrain herself anymore.

"Have you two picked out a name yet?" Doc countered.

Shana, taken aback, blinked. "Um…we talked about it, but we didn't know if we were having a girl or a boy yet. We were kind of leaning towards Evan if the baby was a boy, and Erin if it was a girl."

Doc grinned. "Well, be prepared to use both."

It took a long moment for that to sink in.


	22. Chapter 51: Decision

**Chapter 51: Decision**

"WHAT?!" Shana finally found her voice and exploded. Snake Eyes simply sat on the edge of the bed, looking befuddled.

"You'll have to use both names. The sonogram's pretty clear, Shana. You're not having one, you're having two."

"Two…" Shana stared at him, then chuckled, slightly giddy, as the news finally sank all the way in. "Twins. I guess I should have expected it, Snake Eyes is a twin, after all, they run in his family…"

"If your twins were identical, both boys or both girls, I would point to family genetics as the possible culprit. But they aren't, they're fraternal, just like Snake Eyes and his twin sister were fraternal. Given… recent events…I'd say those massive injections of Oxytocin Kennedy gave you are to blame. The presence of all those extra hormones prompted your body to release two eggs instead of just one, and Snake Eyes just happened to fertilize both—one with sperm that carried the male chromosome, and one with sperm that carried the female chromosome. So. Congratulations, you're going to be parents of two little bundles of joy."

"We're having two." Shana turned a slightly dazed look to her husband. "We're having twins. I can't believe we're having twins." Snake Eyes just shook his head, looking bewildered; it was obviously taking more time to sink in for him.

"But now that changes everything, Shana," Doc warned as Shana sat up. "You're going to have to tell everyone you're pregnant, and you're going to have to tell them a bit sooner than four months, because you can't be on active duty after the end of your first trimester. I'm also going to make changes to your dietary needs, increase your caloric intake, put you on a course of prenatal vitamins, and reduce your level of physical activity—"

"When?" Shana's eyes were wide with panic. "Doc, I'm…not ready to tell everyone yet…we haven't decided yet what we're going to do…"

"Then you have to decide quickly," Doc said, although his voice wasn't unsympathetic. "Shana, I know this is still sinking in, and it's a shock, but if you wait too long it's not going to be good for anyone. Clayton's been a good commander, all these years—he deserves to know he's about to lose one of his favorite soldiers. But at the same time, he also deserves to be able to celebrate your joys too—he is your friend as well as your commanding officer."

"I know. And Allie will be overjoyed, and Dash..." Shana grinned. "Dash will be floored. I just…it's too soon, I thought I'd have more time…"

"If you were having one, you'd have another month. Since you're having two, however, you have less time than you would otherwise. And another thing; after twenty weeks you can't fly, so if you wanted to go home to Atlanta, you'd have to leave soon. Or you'll have to take a road trip to get down there."

Shana sighed. "I couldn't have the babies here, could I?" she asked, slightly wistfully, but her hopeful look was negated by Doc's almost frantic headshake.

"I am not an obstetrician. This is not a hospital. If something goes wrong, Shana, I would have no idea what to do. Olivia was bad enough—I swore I would never ever find myself in that position again. It may have looked like I knew what I was doing, but I didn't, and I was terrified I would slip up and cost Olivia her life…or Auggie's. And Clayton would have been devastated. So no, in answer to your question—absolutely not. Not because I don't want to, but because you mean too much to me for me to pretend I know what to do if something went wrong."

"I understand. Thank you, Doc," Shana said, leaning forward and giving him an impulsive hug. "I promise I won't wait too much longer before I tell everyone."

"You'd better," Doc said, but he was smiling as Shana and Snake Eyes left.

Shana was still thinking about it the next morning, at morning mess; Cam was sitting with Charlie, and Shana was confronted, all over again, with worry about how this news would hit her friend. She loved Cam, and didn't want to hurt her.

Her heart skipped a beat when Clayton stopped by her table to tell Shana, Allie, and Cam that General Johnson wanted to talk with all of them after morning mess, but he must have seen the apprehension on her face, because he smiled. "No, we're not in trouble. Just something procedural, he said." Still, she couldn't help the butterflies as she, Allie and Cam rose from the table, accompanied by Snake Eyes, Dash, and Charlie.

Her feeling that something was wrong was reinforced when they walked into the briefing room Clayton had set aside for this video conference, and Lieutenant General Johnson didn't smile. While they had been used to the dour frowns of the late, unlamented General Clancy, Lieutenant General Johnson usually had a smile or a cheerful word for them when he saw them.

Not today.

"Good morning," he said briefly as they sat down. "I appreciate your taking the time to talk to me."

"We could hardly _not_ talk to you, you _are_ our superior," Allie pointed out reasonably, but her brown eyes looked worried. Johnson looked like someone who was trying to figure out how to break bad news.

"It's come to the attention of the higher-ups that Corporal Arlington has been rather involved in a long string of civilian trials of late," Johnson finally said, staring down at his hands, folded tightly around each other on the polished tabletop. His voce strengthened, and his expression grew fierce as he raised his head. "Before we go any further, let me express my sincerest condolences for what you've been through, and everything that has happened to you. The whole thing has been heinous and despicable and I am fiercely glad you've survived it."

"Thank you," Cam said, although her brow was furrowed in puzzlement.

Johnson took a deep breath, but his eyes dropped to the table and he didn't look up as he said, "Considering the details that have come to light about your treatment as a child captive, the higher-ups have expressed…concerns…about your ability to continue as a soldier in the US Army."

There was a long, tense silence as that sank in, and then Shana saw anger cross everyone's face. And she knew that anger was on hers too. Flint was the first to speak. "Permission to speak candidly, Lieutenant General?" he asked formally, tightly.

Johnson nodded. "Feel free. All of you."

Dash stood from the table, his back rigid with anger. "Sir. If Corporal Arlington's experiences were going to affect her ability to perform duties as part of her service, it would have shown up before now. The trials she is currently involved in have nothing to do with who she is now and what she's capable of—the persons being convicted abused and molested her long before she ever joined. This is simply long-delayed justice, and it is an insult to her to decide now, after she has served honorably and with distinction for four years, that she is unfit for the military!"

Shana rose from her seat. "It is also an insult to myself and Master Sergeant Snake Eyes. We were responsible for her training and evaluation when she first came to our base and we never, ever saw any sign that prior experiences would be detrimental to her ability to perform. In fact, it is those exact experiences of which you speak that resulted in her saving my life earlier this year and while her road to recovery has been long, I have every confidence that once the trials are over she will be able to return to duty with no special assists."

"Her behavior has been exemplary. Her record has not." Johnson sighed, and in that moment Shana knew that this decision hadn't been his, it had come from somewhat higher up than he was, and she understood from the set of his shoulders and the tightness in the corners of his mouth that he didn't agree with it either; he was simply following orders, and personally disagreed with the decision. "Look, I've met with and talked to all of you. I have the utmost respect for all of you, even Corporal Arlington. Our problem, however, is how this looks. She's been in the Army four years; in that time while her commanders records say she has been exemplary, She has a history of being involved in trouble. The complainant in three courts-martial, that of Broadview, Walker, and Hilton; the incidents with Homeland Security and Miramar Brig; the psychologist's reports from there that say she was in intensive counseling for CPTSD; then coming back to base, the horrific incident with human traffickers that nearly killed both O'Hara and Arlington, Arlington's continued physical debilitation that has delayed her return to active duty, this long string of civilian trials in which Arlington was also revealed to have murdered her Aunt and Uncle—yes, I know it was in self-defense, but the fact remains that you still killed someone—and your trips to Bellevue for therapy and counseling. You have to admit that with that record, anyone would come under closer scrutiny."

"I know that, but one only has to talk to her, to meet Corporal Arlington, before you see that she is dedicated and this has affected neither her performance or commitment," Clayton said, and Shana could hear the anger in his voice. "If you want Corporal Arlington discharged from the Army you will have to draw up the papers yourself, because I am hereby refusing to follow that order. This is an outrage. She has sacrificed everything for my unit and my soldiers and I refuse to reward that sacrifice with a discharge."

"You will disobey a direct order, General Abernathy?" Lieutenant General Johnson asked, his voice quiet.

Hawk squared his shoulders. "Yes. I will."

"Disobeying orders is a court-martial offense, General Abernathy. It could cost you your command, possibly even your career."

Clayton's hawk-like gaze never wavered. "Loyalty like the kind showed by Corporal Arlington to my unit is worth paying for, Lieutenant General Johnson. I would be a poor commander if I repaid her loyalty by throwing her under the bus, as we have already done. All of this, Lieutenant General, everything that's happened to her, has been our fault. If the military had chosen to leave her with the Hammonds, back at Osan, none of this would have happened. If they'd done a little more digging, a little more checking into the Parks' claims, it would have turned up the fact that she was in no way related to them and none of this would have happened. If her father's friend in the military had followed up and stayed in touch, none of this would have happened.

"If we had kept a closer eye on Broadview, the SERE training incidents wouldn't have happened. If I hadn't tried to give Walker a second chance, her rape on my base wouldn't have happened. Johnson, if the US military and its members had, at any point, evinced even a hint of the honor, integrity, compassion, fairness, justice and loyalty Cam herself exemplifies and displays, if we had, at any point in this whole process, showed even a hint of this to the daughter of one of our own, none of this would have happened to Cameron Arlington, and I, for one, am not going to be the latest in a long line of military personnel who has disregarded her health, safety, and needs. She is my responsibility not only as my subordinate and soldier, but as my friend and I will defend her even if it means my command and career."

"So be it. General Abernathy, you are hereby—"

"Stop it," and every eye in the room was drawn to Cam as she stood. There were tears in her eyes, but her voice was steady. "Stop it. I won't let Clayton sacrifice his command and career for me. Nor any of you." She faced Johnson squarely. "I will sign the discharge papers."

"Cam. I will fight this. You don't have to sacrifice your career for me. I have no problem –" Clayton started to say, but Cam shook her head.

"I don't want you to. I've been thinking about this, Clayton, and Charlie and I both talked about it, and I'd actually already made the decision to muster out, I just didn't know when I'd do it. This is better for everyone. I don't know how long this scar reduction procedure is going to take, there's a chance it won't work, I can't resume duty with one shoulder higher than the other, and Doc has been worried about the way my lungs sound, and Lieutenant General Johnson is right, my CPTSD could become a liability to the team in the long run, in ways we can't even imagine right now."

"If it makes you feel any better, Corporal Arlington, it will be an honorable discharge, and while you will not be able to re-enlist with the Army or any other branch of the US military, you can go to any VA hospital and continue to receive whatever treatment you have now."

She squared her shoulders and saluted bravely, although there were tears streaming down her cheeks and her voice shook when she said "Thank you, Sir."

And then Charlie stood up from his place next to her, saluted, and said, "Lieutenant General. I am hereby resigning my commission."

Johnson blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I am hereby resigning my commission. Cameron Arlington is my wife, my life, and where she goes, there will I go also. If you are discharging her, I will leave too."

"I…okay…" Johnson seemed at a loss for words, and an awkward silence reigned in the room for a moment. And into that silence, Shana heard her own voice say, "I am resigning my commission so you should draw up papers for me as well." A quick look sideways at Snake Eyes, at the broad, brilliant smile on his face, and she said "Please draw up papers for Snake Eyes too." It was surreal, like her voice didn't even belong to her, but even as she said the words she knew they were right. It was time to end this chapter of her life and start another one.

"Shana! No!" Cam sobbed out. "Please, Shana, don't do this, not for me, don't throw your career away for me…"

Shana looked at her with an unreadable expression. "I'm pregnant. Doc says we're having twins."

Absolute shocked silence for a full minute, and then a babble of voices.

"Shana, you didn't tell me—" Allie.

"How did you—" Clayton.

"Shana, oh Goddess, oh I'm so happy for you—" Cam.

And it was Lieutenant General Johnson who finally raised his voice and shouted, "Silence!" Then the babble quieted.

"Now. Master Sergeant O'Hara, are you quite sure you want to be discharged? You could always take maternity leave, then get a posting at another base, wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do. The same with Master Sergeant Snake Eyes—you don't have to leave the military, we'd be perfectly fine finding you another post where you can raise the kids and still be together. You only have a few years before you're eligible to collect pension—if you leave now, you'll lose that."

Snake Eyes' hands flashed, and Shana translated for him. "I don't care about the pension. I just want to be with Shana." And she felt her face flush a brilliant pink at his words.

"With twins, you'll need the extra money."

Snake Eyes just shrugged. "We'll manage." Shana spoke for both of them.

Lieutenant General Johnson exhaled gustily. "Well, I'm going to give you a little time to change your minds before you do something irrevocable. But I guess, in the meantime, congratulations are in order for the incipient birth. And now…I'll leave all of you to get on with it." The videoscreen clicked off.

Allie turned a furious glare on Shana, balling her fists on her hips. "I'm your _friend_! And you didn't _tell _me!"

Shana shrugged, feeling oddly giddy. Although she'd wrestled with the decision, now that it had been made she felt…oddly liberated. And it felt right, for her and for Snake Eyes. Leave the military, live a quiet civilian life in California with each other, raising their twins…yes, it was time to go. She'd loved this base and these people but it was definitely time to go. "I didn't know how to tell you. And we hadn't really decided what we want to do yet. I mean, we talked about it, and Snake Eyes made it clear he'd do whatever I wanted to do, but I didn't know how to say it. And then this briefing came up…it just came out. I wanted to tell all of you first, but it just came out here. I didn't even know what I decided until I said it."

"Well, you've decided now." Clayton held out a hand. "Congratulations, Shana. And Snake Eyes. You two are going to be wonderful parents." Dash said much the same thing…and then Shana's eyes locked with Cam's across the room.

"You didn't tell me," Cam said, very softly, and neither she nor Shana noticed when Clayton, Dash, Allie, Charlie, and Snake Eyes exited the conference room, closing the door quietly so the two of them could be alone.

"I…I didn't know how," Shana said, swallowing hard around a lump in her throat at the reproachful look in Cam's eyes. "I was worried that you'd be upset…you can't have any and I thought…it would be too much like flinging that in your face…"

"I'm not going to lie and pretend it doesn't hurt, or that I didn't wish it was me, but Shana…did you really think I wouldn't be happy for you?" And now Shana saw the hurt in Cam's eyes, not hurt that Shana was going to get to experience something Cam couldn't, but hurt that Shana hadn't trusted that Cam would see past that and just be happy for her.

"I'm…sorry…." And suddenly Shana was crying, and Cam was crying, and they stepped around the table and wrapped their arms around each other, and cried.


	23. Chapter 52: More Decisions

**Chapter 52: More Decisions**

The key rattled in the lock, then turned, and Clayton turned the knob to open the door to the apartment.

_I still can't believe Shana and Snake Eyes, Cam and Charlie will both be going. Maybe it's a sign, that I should start thinking about retirement too. I've certainly put in enough years… and the thought of settling down with Liv—and Auggie—has its charm._

He closed the door behind him, put his keys down on the small table next to the door—_Has it really only been a year and a half since I first saw this apartment? It feels like a lifetime_—and then turned and looked down as something bumped against his leg, then started tugging on his pants.

Auggie had figured out how to coordinate crawling a few weeks ago, but he was also apparently a fast learner because here he was, bumping into his Dad. And now he was grabbing Clayton's pant leg, either trying to get his father's attention or pull himself up to stand, Clayton wasn't sure, but his delighted chortling brought a soft, fond smile to Clayton's face as he scooped the baby up in his arms, tossing him in the air.

The first time he'd done that Auggie had been absolutely delighted with being airborne, and although he'd been expecting that Olivia would have something to say about it, she hadn't told him to stop. "It's not like you're going to drop him, after all. He's your son, you wouldn't do that." And Clayton had taken care never to drop him.

"Clayton? Is that you?" Olivia called from the kitchen; he took a deep sniff, and smiled. Yep, just in time for dinner, as he'd planned; lately, he'd been structuring his days around a schedule that would allow him to come and have dinner with Liv and Auggie at the apartment at least twice a week. Liv herself enjoyed cooking for the two of them, and Auggie was now starting to transition off the bottle and onto strained baby food, and Clayton was enjoying the entire process immensely.

He hoped Olivia wouldn't be upset with his proposal over dinner…

"Hi, sweetheart." Liv came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel as she spoke, and Clayton shifted Auggie to one arm so he could lean over and kiss Liv quickly. "Long day?"

He couldn't resist kissing her again, and did. "I'll tell you over dinner."

Over their linguini and alfredo sauce, he told her what had happened. "I don't think it was Johnson's idea, I think he was told to do it by the higher-ups and he didn't agree with it and didn't want to do it, but he had to. I think he was actually relieved when Cam said that she would sign the discharge papers."

"And so were you." Olivia, as always, was direct and honest, even when he didn't like what she was honest about and didn't want to admit it.

"A little bit. Yeah, I was a little relieved, but I also have to admit that I have been thinking about retiring and settling down with you. I just…didn't want it to happen this soon. I've been grooming Dash for this command, but although that's what he says he wants, I have doubts that that's what is going to make him happy. He and Allie are…well, let's say I'm pretty sure they're going to be the next couple to get married, and because he's a Warrant Officer and she's a Staff Sergeant, there's no way that's happening while they're in the military. So without me, the project is either going to dissolve or another General is going to have to take command, and Conrad will move to second-in command."

"Is he going to be able to handle it?" Liv frowned.

Clayton sighed. "He's already third in command, so yes, he can, and I have confidence that he'll be able to handle it. He's a dedicated career soldier, like me, like Dash, but he hasn't yet met that one person he wants to settle down with, so I can completely see him eventually taking over the project…if it survives the current budget cuts and defense downsizing efforts. And I also have to admit over the last year I've become slightly disenfranchised—the military I'm in now is getting further and further away from the military I joined. When I first graduated West Point there was a guy in my class who'd been orphaned after his parents died, and he was still young, and they allowed his parents' best friend to adopt him and continue to live with them instead of shipping him off to the States to live with relatives he'd never met and never knew.

"The fact that they did so to Cam surprised me—and then I was shocked to discover just how little effort actually went into verifying the Parks' claims to be Cam's Aunt and Uncle. If they'd even done a little digging they would have found out, as we did, that they were North Korean spies, and they would never have had a chance to offer Cam up for rent to the highest bidder. There was no follow-up, not even by the people at Osan who professed to care about her. Then the incidents during SERE training, which would have NEVER been allowed to happen when I was in recruit training, and wouldn't have been allowed to happen when Allie and Shana were in training either. Then the fiasco with the courts-martial, and then Walker's despicable, brutal attack on Cam-and while I realize that it wasn't personally my fault, as the one who decided to give him a chance at Joe base, I feel responsible for what happened to her. That was part of the reason why I would have refused to draw up those discharge papers."

He fell silent for a moment, picking at the linguini on his plate. "And Alex. I feel responsible for what happened to her, too; what Clancy did was reprehensible and horrible and when I first joined, there was no way something like that would have been allowed to happen. There was a lot of oversight, a lot more people watching to see that stuff like that didn't happen, and his personal indiscretions would have been found out and exposed long before a morally bankrupt Colombian druglord would have had a chance to blackmail him with the possible exposure of that personal indiscretion."

He sighed and looked at her, and he knew she wasn't seeing General Clayton Abernathy, she was seeing Clayton. "I don't know. I love the military, I love my career, and a year ago I couldn't imagine walking away from either one. But now…" he grabbed a napkin and held it under Auggie's chin just as a mouthful of strained peas came back up. "Now I have you, and I have him, and suddenly going out on a mission with my soldiers carries new significance. I used to love going out, looked for opportunities to do so…now every time I see a mission come across my desk that the old me would have wanted to go on, I think about you and him and what you both would do without me…and when I get up in the morning, I think of you going out there to do your job and I wonder what I'd do if your Captain called me with word that you've been shot, or you've died. The two of you…you and Auggie both…have become such an integral part of my life that I can't imagine life without the two of you, and I find myself wanting to spend more time with you, and my career isn't as important, suddenly. My Dad would laugh if he heard me, and Mom…Mom would say it's about time."

Olivia chuckled a little at that; while she hadn't yet met Clayton's parents in person, they'd chatted via videophone and she had no doubt about how she would be received if they were ever to visit. And they were absolutely in love with Auggie, and she was constantly getting little gifts in the mail, usually accompanied by notes that said "I saw this absolutely adorable _ and I had to get it…"

"So what will you do if you muster out?" She speared a bite of her linguini since Clayton had taken the strained chicken from her and was now taking a turn feeding Auggie so Liv could eat.

"You know, when I was at West Point, among the things we cadets talked about, besides all the medals we would win and the commendations we would receive, was what we'd do when we mustered out. And I've been thinking about it a lot lately. When Alex was in the Congo that first time with my soldiers, Flint was on the verge of scrapping the entire mission and bringing our people home. His orders didn't include Alex, though, and she said that if Flint pulled the team out, she'd hire a bodyguard on her own nickel and go back out. And that was part of the reason why they didn't pull out at that time, Ettienne asked what kind of bodyguard would she be able to hire, and we all know the answer to that. It wasn't likely to be someone to whom honor, loyalty, compassion, fairness, and justice would have meant anything next to the almighty dollar, and the competency of the guard Alex would have gotten would have been in direct proportion to the size of her bank account. Which wasn't much." He smiled wryly, then got serious again. "And so one of the things I've been thinking about has been starting my own private security firm. Not the kind of rent-a-cop you see sitting in the front desk of office buildings, but the kind of people that someone on a humanitarian mission—like Alex—would need to hire in order to do their jobs. Someone who would consider the circumstances of the mission to be at least as important as the amount of pay received; someone who would place morals and ethics higher than money. The ICC personnel who do jobs like Alex's—go out into the jungle to get testimony against baby rapers and child murderers—and the doctor she was with, the MSF—while he may have betrayed Alex, he did it to save his own wife and child, and I…I never want to have to make that decision, but I would if it kept you and Auggie safe."

"It will never happen." Olivia said with certain finality as she put her fork down on her empty plate. "If it makes any difference, I like that idea."

"Good." He took a deep breath. "I hope you like my next idea just as much."

"What is it?" she asked absently as she collected her empty plate and his and took it to the sink.

"I want you to move."

She dropped the plate in the sink. "What?"

He heard the edge in her voice and hurried to placate her. "No, not like that. This apartment's too small for the two of you, much less the three of us. I'd like to find a nice place for all of us out on Staten Island, a house where you don't have to worry about Auggie's yelling waking the neighbors, a bit of yard for Auggie to play in and a garage for your Mustang. There are all kinds of ownership incentives for military personnel, and for cops too, I believe, and I'm sure we can find something well within our budget."

"Our budget?" Olivia raised an eyebrow, but at least she didn't sound angry. "You sound like you've already made up your mind to settle down."

"I have. Haven't really decided when, yet, but I do know that I want to settle down eventually, here in New York, with you and Auggie. This is…" he struggled to find words to describe it, and finally shrugged and went with terms he was familiar with. "This is laying the groundwork for a strategic retreat."

And Olivia actually laughed at that as she pulled a laptop out of a bag and opened it out on the kitchen table. "That's an interesting way of putting it. All right, here's my secret; you took me by surprise because I was thinking the same thing—about moving, I mean—and I was trying to figure out how to broach the subject with you without making you feel like I was dunning you for money just because I had your baby."

Clayton cupped her chin in his hands. "Liv, do you really think I would think that?" he said softly. "It took both of us to make him, and Jesus, but I still wake some nights screaming because I see you drugged senseless, screaming under me as I raped you, and I wake up and hate myself all over again. It's even hard to look at Auggie sometimes knowing what I did to you to make him. And I remember you lying in the infirmary in a coma from giving birth to him, and it's just…hard. I love him, and I know it wasn't his fault, but I hate myself for what I did to you."

"Clayton, I don't even think about it anymore. I love him, and you love him, and he adores you, and I guess it helps that I was drugged and unaware. All of that aside, though…I've come to see us as a family, and I've even wondered what getting married to you…someday…would be like. To do this every evening…dinner, and talk, and going to sleep next to you…I've been thinking lately I'd like to try it."

Auggie interrupted them at just that moment by grabbing the jar of peas and flinging it in the air. Whatever Clayton said was cut off as green goo splattered all over his face and shirtfront.

"Oh my God, no wonder he doesn't want to eat this stuff! It's gross!" was the first thing he could think of as he tasted the strained peas, and Olivia dissolved in helpless laughter as he grabbed the kitchen towel and tried to wipe the goopy mess off his face and hair.

She was still giggling as he strode back into the kitchen half an hour later, after a quick shower and a change of clothes—for some reason, a lot of his civilian clothes had been finding their way to Liv's apartment—to find her sitting in a kitchen chair, Auggie inspecting the kitchen floor on hands and knees, and scrolling down her laptop screen. "Are you looking at…houses?" he said incredulously.

"I've been looking at houses. I told you, I've been thinking about this, but there's no way I could afford something on my own, even with the cop-on-the-block program. But with you willing to chip in, between us both we could afford something nice."

Clayton's eyes narrowed. Usually when a woman said that, that meant she'd already picked something out…"So have you found anything?"

She blushed. "Well, I kind of liked this one," she said, and turned the computer screen toward him. On it was a lovely one-floor rancher, with a garage at one end, a nice green lawn, and a large tree shading the front porch. "It's three bedrooms and an extra room that could serve as a library or den or computer room. The kitchen's lovely, and it's an estate sale, the former owner died and the owner's children just want to get rid of it and everything in it. It means I'd be able to move in with just my clothes, everything else is already there so I don't have to worry about moving furniture…"

Clayton shot her an offended look. "I have a base full of soldiers who would be perfectly willing to help you move. Moving heavy items isn't a concern for you."

She grinned, then said, "The only things I'd want to move are my bed, clothes, and Auggie's things. I was a little worried about what I'd do with my apartment—I still have five more months on my lease, but it's not really a concern now. I can sublet it."

"But then you'd be responsible for the tenants. Do you have someone in mind?"

"Shana and Snake Eyes, until Shana has the babies and they can fly out to California."

Clayton sat down heavily in one of the kitchen chairs, stunned. It was the perfect solution—Liv moved into a house already furnished, wouldn't have to worry about taking too much with her, and Shana and Snake Eyes would take this apartment until the lease was up. "And Cam and Charlie might take the second room so Cam can help Shana until the babies come." He was absolutely positive Cam wouldn't head for her reservation cottage until after the babies were born, and she still had a couple months of trials left to go plus the scar reduction procedure—and a possible lung transplant. "Jesus, Liv, I didn't even think of that. You're a genius."

She looked pleased. "I was a little worried about the price, though."

He took a quick peek. It was pricey—everything on Staten Island was…but he seriously didn't think it would be a problem. "I'm sure that could be financed. And with military discounts, I don't think it's going to hit our pockets too hard. Tomorrow, give them a call and see when we can go out and take a look at the place." Yeah, he was sure they would be able to swing it. As a two star General, he made an almost embarrassing amount of money, compared to her salary as a civil servant, and he didn't really spend much of it; he hated shopping, had no family—well, he hadn't before this year—on which to spend it, so he had a tidy amount saved up. He could take care of the down payment, and then the mortgage would be something they could afford easily. And Liv would be out of the city, in a quiet neighborhood, and since it was on Staten Island, he'd be able to sneak out to see her and Auggie more often…yes, it was the perfect solution for everyone.


	24. Chapter 53: Johnson

**Chapter 53: Johnson**

Clayton tapped on the door of Cam's quarters quietly. "Cam? You in there?"

"Just a minute," came Doc's voice from inside the room, and Clayton waited patiently until Shana yanked open the door. "Okay. We're done. Come on in." And as he stepped in, he saw Cam standing in front of Charlie, face buried in his chest, as Doc carefully eased the back of her soft, worn 'Army' t-shirt down over a heavy swath of bandages Clayton could see wrapped around her torso. "Is everything okay?"

"I'm fine," Cam spoke quickly before anyone else could say anything, but he noticed as she straightened up from where she was leaning on Charlie that her eyes were red and her cheeks damp. She scrubbed at the tears and forced a smile to her face. "I'm fine."

Shana gave her a look that said the redhead thought her friend was being ridiculously stupid, then turned to Clayton. "The pulsed-laser treatment Cam's getting to enhance the growth of skin cells under the scar tissue has been going well, and yesterday the doctor started cutting away some of the scar tissue to reveal the new skin underneath. Cam gets a local while the cutting's getting done, but when that wears off the new skin is incredibly sensitive and even just blowing on the skin hurts. The skin itself is still fragile, too, and if she reinjures this there won't be a second chance, so Doc figured on wrapping her torso with soft bandages so her clothes won't rub the new skin, and she's sleeping unclothed to give the new skin time to breathe. This is just until it toughens up a bit, but until it does she's going to have to get wrapped every morning and unwrapped every night."

"Jesus." Clayton winced; he couldn't think of anything else to say. 'I'm sorry' seemed inadequate,

"Hey, it's not all bad," Cam brightened, though Clayton wondered just how much of it was forced and how much was genuine. "Look." She pointed to her shoulders and Clayton saw that they were now even. "I'm not getting those muscle cramps in my shoulder anymore, and I can even raise my arm up to shoulder level!" She demonstrated.

"That's…great," Clayton tried to smile, but inside he was cringing. Before all of this happened, she was a phenomenal dancer—now she was happy just to be able to lift one arm higher than her shoulder. It was too steep a price for her to have had to pay.

But he realized in the next minute that he'd somehow said the wrong thing, because she dropped her arm and looked somehow sad. Shana grabbed his arm, forcibly yanked him out of Cam and Charlie's quarters, and closed the door. "Clayton, try to be a little more enthusiastic, okay? I know, when you look at her now and you remember the girl you first saw dancing in the meadow back at Camp Mackall, you compare the difference and it's disheartening, but Cam is working hard at just trying to be normal again, and with everything that's going on right now there's very, very little for her to be optimistic about. But she's trying, at a time when a lot of other people would be giving up. She still has months of trials ahead of her, and she just found out she's getting fired, and so the small victories like just being able to raise her arm again are all she has to hang onto. Don't take that away from her, or make her feel like those victories are insignificant."

And Clayton blinked as he realized that was exactly what he'd been thinking. "I'm sorry, Shana, that's exactly what I've been thinking. I didn't realize it was that obvious—and I didn't realize how that hurt her."

Shana sighed. "It's only obvious because I've been seeing the exact same thing happening with people all over base. It's just like Snake Eyes, all over again; after the accident, people either tiptoed around him or went out of their way trying to be nice, and it just irritated him that they couldn't see he was the same person he was before the accident, only the outside changed. He didn't talk much before, so the lack of conversation certainly wasn't missed. And I remember he was depressed for a while, and I look at Cam and the same thing is happening. She's trying so hard just to be normal, just another Joe who's temporarily incapacitated, but people know about the trials and what she went through, and I think that's part of the reason why she decided to just sign the discharge papers, because as hard as I'm trying to coax or bully everyone into just accepting her, even I can see it's not going to happen. She's never going to be 'just another Joe' again."

Clayton found it inexpressibly sad.

It must have shown on his face because Shana sighed and patted his arm. "It is sad. All she's ever wanted was to have a normal life and be treated just like everyone else, but her past keeps rearing its ugly head and ruining it for her, and it really is a shame. But we are her closest friends, Snake Eyes and you and me, and as her friends it's up to us to treat her fairly. She has earned it. So go back in there and don't look at her as a victim, she is still the same girl you met at Camp Mackall."

Clayton tried to keep that in mind as he and Shana went back into the room. "I do have some good news for you," he said as he sat in the desk chair facing Charlie, Cam, Shana and Doc. "I talked Liv into moving—we're going to go look at a house here on Staten Island tomorrow."

"Are you two getting married?" Cam's eyes lit up as she smiled, pleased.

"Mmmm. Not yet, though I will say the idea's starting to look more and more attractive. She's the most incredible woman I've ever met not in the military, and Auggie…" he sighed, and his fond smile left no doubt how he felt about the little guy.

"So how is this good news for Cam?" Shana folded her arms as she sat on the bed beside her friend.

"For both of you, actually. I don't know when those discharge papers are going to come through, but as soon as Liv and I find something suitable—"

"You mean as soon as _you_ find something _you_ think is suitable for your son and his mother," Shana interrupted, her eyes sparkling with wicked merriment. Cam giggled as Clayton did his best to look dignified and ignore the comment.

"As soon as Liv and I find something suitable, she'll be moving. But she still has five months left on the lease on her apartment, and she wants to sublet it to both of you. Shana can't fly until the babies are born, and Cam still has a couple months of trials plus the rest of this scar treatment, and I'm pretty sure you won't want to leave until Shana has the babies anyway, so you'll have a place to stay in Manhattan while you do all of that. As an added bonus, it's not only close to the police station, but also to the courthouse and to the scar treatment clinic and the hospital if something happens and Shana needs to go in a hurry. And even though Liv got a cop's discount on the apartment that won't transfer to the two of you, there is a military housing discount that you could qualify for that will put the rent at the same price that Liv got it for."

Cam was staring at him open-mouthed. Beside her, Shana was doing a similar landed-fish imitation. "You….can't be serious," she said finally. "My God, Clayton, that's…incredible. Extremely generous. Wonderful. I don't know, are there any other words to describe this offer?" she shook her head blankly. "I guess…all we'll need is furniture…"

"Oh no, what's in there comes with it. Liv was a little vague on the details, but I got that she spent a significant amount of time undercover working for the Feds in a joint anti-terrorism campaign, and while she was in they put her small stuff in storage and got rid of her original apartment and furniture. I gather from listening to her that she was pissed as hell—there were a few things she would have liked to keep—but she didn't have any choice but to accept it, it was over and done, and the Feds were the ones who put her up in a new apartment—the current one she's in now, that you'll be subletting. The furnishings came with it and need to stay with it."

"But then what is Liv going to do, sleep in Auggie's crib with him?" Cam sounded aghast.

"Actually the house we're going to look at is almost completely furnished—the elderly owner died, and the children live out of state and didn't want to keep the house, so it's selling for what it appraised for, furniture included, so the children can divide the money from the property sale. Liv picked it out—she said she'd been thinking about it already, she just didn't know how to ask me about going halves on the money for it, so we had a discussion last night and I agreed—I wanted her out of the city anyway, that apartment's going to be too small as soon as Auggie starts walking. He's a boy, he needs a yard, and Liv needs a garage for that Mustang of hers."

Shana sobered as she leaned forward and fixed Clayton with that penetrating green gaze. "Are you thinking of leaving too?" she said bluntly. "Because it sounds like you're planning to settle down."

He wanted to say no, but that wouldn't have been fair to these people, who were not only his soldiers but also deep personal friends. "I won't say I'm not thinking about it. I have almost thirty years in the military, I'm well-qualified for retirement and a pension, and to be honest, I find myself thinking more and more about being able to see Auggie and Liv at the end of a day than I am looking forward to seeing my own quarters." He made a face. "In fact, I can't even remember the last time I slept in my bed here on base. But I have no idea who's going to take over here if I leave, and I don't want to leave while there's still a chance that we could get the axe as defense spending gets more budget cuts."

"What would you do once you got out?" Cam said quietly. "Do you have any plans? Have you and Liv talked about it yet?"

"Yeah. I told her about my wanting to start my own private security firm. Not the rent-a-cops in the front desk of office buildings, but bodyguards for people like Alex who go into dangerous situations to do what no one else wants to do." He explained to them what he'd told Liv the night before. About Alex's saying she would hire a bodyguard and go back out if she didn't have official military support, and all of the Joes nodded; they all knew what kind of help Alex would have been able to hire. "So I would like to do that. Be able to pick missions, pick assignments, to do things that will matter, things that will help people, instead of just killing because our government says they want us to."

Shana was smiling. "I like that idea, Clayton, and so will Snake Eyes. If, when you get out, you decide to go ahead with this, count us in on this plan of yours. Noble assignments, for the best of reasons, a chance to do some good…I like that plan."

"Count us in too, Clayton," Cam said, with a nod in Charlie's direction. "If you have a mission where you need a navigator and tracker, you'll know exactly where to find us."

"It's not going to be too much longer before Dash and Allie leave too, they're going to be the next ones getting married, and I'll bet they'll want in on this little plan of yours too. Oh, and Ettienne. I overheard a discussion between the two of them not that long ago about where Ettienne wanted to set up his little Cajun restaurant, and Alex was wondering what kind of startup capital would be needed. So while they haven't announced their intent to leave—yet—I'm absolutely positive they're planning on it eventually. And when that happens, I'm sure Ettienne would love to get a chance to get out of the kitchen once in a while and come grubbing with us for a noble cause. Remember, too, he was the one who said if Dash chose to pull the team out, he'd resign his commission right there and stay with Alex to protect her. He's a Marine, and they have a protective streak a mile wide—and little patience for those who piss them off."

Clayton had to grin. Yes, that sounded exactly like the big Cajun Marine, and he could well imagine Ettienne wanting to be an enthusiastic part of the projected operation. "I can just see him do that. All right, I've talked your ear off enough—we all have things we have to do, so I'll see you all at evening mess."

He left Cam and Charlie's quarters with a warm glow around his heart. If he'd needed convincing that his plan was the right one, he'd just gotten it. He was still cheerful as he walked into his office and got started on the stack of paperwork sitting there; normally paperwork seemed like a chore, but a great deal of it was rote filling-in-blanks and checking boxes and signing lines, and half his mind was on the form while the other half of it kept mulling over the photos he'd seen posted online of the house he and Liv would look at the next day. He hadn't told Liv, but he'd already decided it was a done deal; Shana's teasing aside, he really didn't care if he liked the place. The fact that Liv liked it was enough for him, and he was going to do whatever he could to make sure she got her dream. And he had to admit he did like the place, what he'd seen of it online, at least. The reality might be different, but he didn't think so. And even if a few things needed fixing…so what? It would be their place, just them and Auggie.

He couldn't even bring himself to scowl when his vidphone connection beeped and he saw Lieutenant General Johnson on his screen. "Good afternoon, Johnson," he said heartily.

Johnson narrowed his eyes. "You look entirely too happy for a commander who's looking at losing four of his soldiers, Abernathy."

Clayton thought fast. He didn't want to tell Johnson what he was thinking, or what his plans were, so he settled for a half-truth. "Auggie's crawling well, and Liv acknowledged that her apartment is getting too small so she's looking at a house and moving out of the city. I am pleased to no end."

Johnson grinned. "And is there going to be a marriage license somewhere in this process?"

Clayton cleared his throat, but he knew the silly smile was still on his face. "Not at the moment…but neither she nor I are discounting that it will happen eventually. I've barely even known her for a year, and when you take into account that she works child rape cases for a living, you can see why she might not like men much."

Johnson chuckled. "All right. I can see that."

Clayton sobered as he leaned forward. "Can I ask a favor, not officer to officer, but person to person?"

"I'll try. What is it?"

"Is there any way you could hold off on the discharge papers until after the trials are over, or if not, at least until Liv and I find a place for her to live?" And he outlined for Johnson the plan; Liv subletting her apartment to Cam and Shana.

"I can see waiting until you both find a place to live, so Shana can have the apartment until the twins come, but why the request for after the trials?"

Clayton sighed. "Because all of this has been incredibly stressful on Cam. Having to testify to what those monsters did to her, right on the heels of what happened with Kennedy and the human trafficking, and she's currently going through scar treatment in Manhattan—it's not helping. Alex got permission for the court to use her rank when addressing her, and while I haven't been there for all the trials, I have seen enough to know that when it gets difficult and she's on the edge of a stress-induced CPTSD flashback, Alex will stress her rank and that helps keep her grounded in the here-and-now. If we take that away now it could hurt her trials and her credibility if she loses it while up there. Some of the things that were done to her…Johnson, there's no way I would call these animals men after knowing that. They aren't even human, to be able to do these things to a child who they knew was underage and unwilling. And they have video of what was done to her, and they kept it, which is even worse. And we have to remember that our military is directly responsible—she wasn't related to the Parks, they were not her Aunt and Uncle, they were North Korean spies, and if the military had done just a tiny bit of digging before they sent her to New York to live with those two…monsters…none of this would have happened. None. Her life would be very, very different now—we'd probably be watching her onstage at the American Ballet Theater and never know her. And she would have been spared all of the horrible things that have happened to her."

Johnson sighed. "I understand that, Clayton, and I promise I will try to talk to the higher-ups to see if we can slow the process down a bit. To be completely honest with you, I wasn't entirely in agreement with the decision either, but I understand we're looking at budget cuts and we need to downsize, and even you would have to admit that without knowing all of the background behind who she is, and without having met her in person, it's easy to get the wrong idea about her if you only saw her record. So let me see what I can do and I'll keep you informed."


	25. Chapter 54: Singletary

**Chapter 54: Singletary**

Clayton was forcibly reminded of Shana's words regarding how stressful all of this was on Cam the next day.

She'd been out at the scar clinic the previous evening, and he could tell from the thickening of her profile that she was swathed in bandages under the Class B's she wore. She moved slowly, carefully, like she was tired or like moving hurt, and she was pale, though he didn't know if that was due to the pain, the painkillers she was taking just to stay upright, or the fact that this was one of the most difficult trials she still had left to face—the trial of Allan Singletary.

He knew a little about the man already—Alan Singletary was the cover she'd used to slip undercover in the slave market. He liked Asians, apparently, and was also apparently in the habit of scarring his slaves almost past usefulness, then dumping them back on the slave market as so much damaged meat. Cam knew him well, and according to Leo Yu, Singletary knew Cam just as well.

What hadn't been adequately conveyed to Clayton was just the uncomfortable feeling of 'wrongness' that he got when looking at Singletary. The minute he saw the man, he disliked him. There was something just…off-putting about the man, and Clayton felt instinctively that even if he'd met the man, not knowing about his penchant for young Asian sex slaves, he would still not like Singletary.

Singletary watched Cam walk from the back of the courtroom to the witness box with a fierce, predatory gaze, and Clayton tensed. He didn't like the way the man was looking at Cam, and God help him, but if Singletary tried to attack her physically Clayton would have no trouble overpowering him and killing him with his bare hands. And neither would any of his other soldiers—Allie was here, and Conrad; they'd both expressed an interest in seeing this trial, since they'd been the ones to pose as Singletary's slave handlers back in the Amsterdam market. Clayton had read their reports on what had happened, and he had wanted to see this SOB too.

Of course, the fact that he'd been suddenly taken ill by a fast-spreading, virulent strain of syphilis could account for some of the unease he felt when he looked at the man, but Clayton didn't think so. He was firmly convinced that his aversion was due to the man himself.

Cam was sworn in, seated herself, then, in a steady voice, began to tell them how she'd first met Alan Singletary: awakened in her basement room to find her uncle standing over her and Alan Singletary by his side, looking down at her. He'd tested her obedience and will, by hurting her with a variety of progressively more brutal implements, telling her to stay still as he hurt her. He tested her abilities next; forcing her to comply with a number of disgusting requests. The judge stopped her in the middle of this testimony, spoken in a flat, dead voice, apparently deciding that the jurors didn't need to hear any more.

There'd been no kindness, no compassion, no pity or consideration from him, but there had been when he'd brought one of his own slaves on another visit. Her name had been Jade, and she had been one of his slaves for a very long time; it was she who had dared her Master's displeasure in the long hours of the night when both Cam and herself were tied in unbearably cramped, agonizing positions at Singletary's whim, and explained the world of sex slavery to the confused, frightened young girl.

"It's no use fighting, because the more you fight the more they hurt you," Cam's whispered words were loud in the hushed, silent courtroom. "You just do the best you can to comply with every order, as quickly as possible. Never let them see your eyes, because in your eyes they can see fear or pain or rebellion or anger, and they punish you more. Figure out what they like, as soon as you can, and then give it to them. Some Masters like hearing a slave scream; as soon as you know that's what they like, scream as often and as loudly as you can. For most of them, as soon as they've come, they lose interest, so you do whatever you can, whatever you have to, just to make that happen as quickly as possible.

"The only time when you don't give them what they want is when you know they want you to fight. A lot of them like someone who fights because it gives them an excuse to hurt you more. So don't give them that. You struggle a little bit, then just go limp and let them do whatever they want to do. They will be frustrated because they aren't getting what they want, and they'll try to hurt you to the point where you think you have to fight them to keep from killing you, but once they get frustrated enough, it's a turn-off, and they will just beat you up and leave angry. You can avoid being raped that way. Now, though, once a man gets off they lose interest, so if you just want to get it over with, you fight, let him beat you, get his rocks off raping you, and they'll leave until next time."

Clayton couldn't imagine hearing that, as a fifteen year old captive, and from the look on Shana's face, next to him, he knew she felt the same too. Despicable. Reprehensible. Monstrous. And those words didn't even begin to describe the anger he felt. This other girl was seventeen, Cam had been fifteen, and while they had tried to be gentle when forced to hurt each other, there was simply no way to avoid it all—what Kennedy had done, whipping Cam with barbed wire until Shana agreed to whip her herself to avoid him killing Cam…that was apparently standard procedure for these sadists.

And when Alex concluded her questioning, and the defense lawyer stood up, Clayton knew instinctively that he didn't like this man either. There was something 'wrong' about this man, just like there was about Singletary, and he wondered, for a fleeting moment, if this lawyer might have been one of the ones who Cam had never seen—Alex had gone through every name in the ledger and Cam had explained that many of these clients asked that she be hooded for the duration of their sessions and she had never seen their faces—or any identifying characteristics that could have been used to identify them as the mole had identified Leo Yu.

"Did you ever tell my client that you were there unwillingly?" And Clayton could see the defense strategy as soon as the defense lawyer started his questioning. The old she didn't say she didn't want it, so she must have.

But Cam nodded. "Every man who came. Every single person. I hoped that eventually someone would help me escape, someone would understand I didn't want it and would help me get away…but no one ever did." A soft note of despair. Clayton knew then that at the time she'd set fire to the cabin and refused to run, she'd given up all hope. Not just of rescue, but of ever being free. _How?_ He wondered. _How do you brutalize and hurt a child so much that you would drive her to suicide? How do you do that to a child?_ He couldn't imagine it; thinking about Auggie, at home with Liv, being forced to go through a hell like Cam had—if anyone ever touches Auggie he wouldn't have to worry about a judge. And Clayton knew, with bone-deep certainty, if Frederick Arlington had known what had happened to his beloved daughter, there would have been nowhere on earth that these men would have been able to run to hide from him.

Cam's voice remained steady as she answered all of his questions, seemingly calm and unflappable. Alan Singletary, on the other hand, was getting more and more irritated with each calm sentence, each refutation of more specious arguments. She wanted it, or she would have tried to escape; when Singletary and his guest, Ritchie Curry (whose trial was coming up next) played games in the woods, the hunting, camping, fishing, hiking—when she was hiking, why didn't she drop the load and run? Oh, she didn't have clothes and shoes…but then, when she was running through the woods, burned, she hadn't had clothes or shoes either, so why would that have been any different?

But then he changed tacks. She had the chance to stop it all before it began; when she was at school and been removed from her Aunt and Uncle's care because a teacher noticed bruises and called CPS, why hadn't she reported it then? When she'd broken her legs and was in the hospital, why hadn't she talked to the doctors then? Or when her Aunt and Uncle took her to the doctor to get the casts off, while she was there she could have told the doctor, and surely the doctor would have kept her in the back room or helped her get to the police. Why hadn't she? And later, at the cabin, on those two separate occasions when she'd been allowed upstairs—once when her basement flooded, then again when they'd had the barre installed—she hadn't tried to run then, either. Surely there had to have been a time when she hadn't been guarded, hadn't been watched or chained.

And Cam struggled to answer these questions; she couldn't explain why she hadn't said anything in those earlier days, and yes, they were questions she'd asked herself later. Although Shana had been working through those issues with her during their impromptu counseling sessions, and Olivia had also been working through it with her, those questions still bothered her.

Olivia had tried to explain it to him. "She was a very shy, quiet child, Clayton. At the time that her Aunt and Uncle started systematically isolating her and cutting her off from the outside world, they were the only people she knew in her world. Teachers, classmates, fellow dancers at her school—she's not one to make friends easily or quickly, and everything in New York was very, very different than the life she was used to at Osan. Not just the surroundings, but the people. She was accustomed to people on a military base with a military mindset; very regimented, ordered, organized. Civilian life, to her, was a huge shock; disorganized, chaotic, bewildering.

"I don't think you've noticed it, Clayton, but Auggie's developed some very different reactions to certain expectations than other babies his age. Other children will demand attention, then when they don't get it they'll whine and howl and cry until they get it. Auggie's a little different, and I think it's partly because when he howls and cries, you don't give in, you'll pick him up, quiet him down, then put him down immediately and leave him to his own devices. When he does it with me, I'll indulge him up to a point, but I have work and the police isn't all that different from the military, and so you and I have some of the same reactions to his temper tantrums and hissy fits too. He's actually learning pretty quickly to be somewhat self-sufficient and keep himself busy. If he wants attention and doesn't get it, he'll go play by himself rather than continue to carry on. Even the women at the daycare center have noticed.

"So when you take that and apply that to Cam—she saw all around her these civilian children demanding and getting attention, but she's never been taught that that was a desirable trait. This is the one thing I could fault her father for; in reinforcing the lesson and his desire to make her a self-sufficient adult dependent only on herself, he neglected to teach her that sometimes you need other people, that you can't do everything by yourself. He didn't teach her to recognize when a problem was too big for her to handle and how to trust other people around you to help you; how to identify those people you can trust and how to open up to them to get help when it's something you can't do on your own. From listening to her talk, she didn't learn that until SERE training; the Army's training seems mostly structured to make sure you pull your own weight in a team, and to make you self-sufficient on your own, which she'd already had a lifetime of training to learn. What she hadn't learned yet was that you need other people and it's all right to admit you need help, and to depend on someone other than yourself for that help. She had one lesson when Wolf Clan helped her when she was burned; but she was in so much pain that she couldn't pay attention to it at the time.

" When SERE training came up, she was prepared to handle it the same way she handles everything; internalize, don't complain, and just deal. Except that this time, she physically couldn't deal with it and it took someone else to help her out. You. She was 'just going to deal' with having to do the Nasty Nick three times in 107 degree heat, but her physical condition would have resulted in death if you hadn't intervened. Then the mess with the hurricane, and you bringing her here to your base to care for her and let her recover—for the first time in her life she ran up against something she couldn't 'just deal with' herself, and she finally realized that there were people—you guys—who could help, would help, and were glad to help simply because you liked her, and weren't just thinking of what she could do for you in return. She realized then how to learn to rely on someone else.

"Then the whole mess with immigration, where it literally was something she couldn't deal with herself. You and this unit, and Charlie, were the ones who taught her that it's okay to need someone else's help, that it's okay to ask for that help, and also taught her that she can be liked and valued for herself, and not just for her skills and abilities. That she doesn't have to be perfect for someone to like her or value her, taught her that she has value as a person, instead of just value as far as what she can do."

Shana had been much simpler and much more direct about it. "Think about that, will you, Clayton?" she'd said in exasperation when he'd asked her the same question. "After having been abandoned by her mother, someone who's supposed to love you unconditionally, and then when her father died, being uprooted from everything she knew, she felt she could only rely on herself.

" She was terrified of the Parks by the time they took her to the doctor's to get the casts taken off, and she says herself that she started to open her mouth several times to ask for help, but those self-sufficiency lessons she got from her father and her inability to trust easily made her unable to say anything. She says herself when she got into the car to go home after leaving the doctor's office, she fully planned on going to school the next day and talking to her teacher, the one who let her dance in the gym on her lunch hour, and tell her what was going on and get her to help. And then they drugged her while she was in that car and when she woke up she was in that basement. And there was no chance after that. At the time she set fire to the cabin, Clayton, she'd hit rock bottom, she couldn't take any more, physically, mentally, emotionally, and she would have rather died by her own hand than to be killed in front of a camera so some sick pervert could take money from people who wanted to watch her die."

And now Alex was calling Dr. George Huang as a rebuttal witness, and he pretty much said the same things Olivia and Shana had said. During her time in the basement, she'd gone from terror and hatred at first, then as a defensive strategy her mind had simply shut down feelings, reactions, because it was safer—her mind could insulate her from the feelings of humiliation, degradation, horror and fear by simply putting her into an automatic response mode. It also explained why Cam had never obtained physical pleasure from anything that had been done to her because of that defense mechanism, and now Clayton understood why Anita had become so frustrated with Cam's physical unresponsiveness.

At the conclusion of five days of Singletary's trial it only took the jury twenty minutes to come back with a guilty verdict, and Clayton suspected that the only reason for the hesitation was to determine the sentence. The same strain of syphilis had taken hold of him and spread very quickly, and he was no longer even staring at Cam in anger—it seemed like it was a huge effort just to sit upright in his chair.

But then the judge, who had been mostly silent throughout the trial—not openly compassionate, as Liz Donnelly had been, though not openly hostile as the first judge in Anita Curtis's case—spoke. The content of his statement was shock, indignation, and just being completely appalled at what he'd heard, the evidence he'd seen. And at the end of it, he awarded Cam restitution—in an amount that was approximately two thirds of Singletary's assets. His house was already going to be sold to pay his lawyer's fees, but his three-hundred-thousand-dollar, almost brand-new Bentley was going to be sold at auction, and the contents of his New York City penthouse apartment was now Cam's, to do with what she pleased, as well as the contents of his main bank account.

Cam was in shock when they left the courthouse that afternoon, but Shana was bursting with excitement. "Imagine what he might have there. And it's all yours."

"But I don't want it, Shana. I don't want anything of his. You and Clayton and Olivia can come with me, take whatever furniture and things you want, because I don't want it. Any of it."


	26. Chapter 55: Restitution

**Chapter 55: Restitution**

She was still saying that when they walked into the plush carpeted lobby of one of New York City's premier luxury apartment buildings, Charlie, Olivia Shana and Alex in tow. As soon as the guard at the desk saw the papers Alex handed him, papers that proclaimed Cam was now the legal owner of the contents of Number 16, he was only too happy to show them to the elevator and instruct the elevator attendant to take them to the penthouse.

"Wow," Shana breathed, clearly impressed when the elevator door opened not on a hallway with other doors to other apartments, but a single hallway with one door at the far end. "The elevator goes straight up to his front door!"

And once inside it was immediately clear that Singletary had to have had a professional designer decorate the apartment. Colors were coordinated perfectly. Fabrics matched. The wood matched. Everything was neat and spotless in the living room, which looked like it was a page taken out of a designer's catalog.

The kitchen, too, looked like a chef's dream kitchen…except for the layer of dust over everything. Alex touched a large meat cleaver almost lovingly, saying, "Tienne's always wanted one like this…"

"Take it," Cam folded her arms defiantly. "I don't want any of it. Take whatever you want."

Shana spoke for a truly impressive full set of stainless steel cookware; Alex claimed the professional chef-quality knives; Olivia claimed the expensive imported china in the china cabinet and the gold-plated silverware. The food in the cupboards was going to go home with Liv, although Shana instantly claimed the box of expensive French chocolates they found in one cabinet (and then generously offered everyone a taste.) That brought the first smile to Cam's lips, and she nibbled on the chocolates as they went through the apartment.

The linen closet revealed amazingly plush Egyptian cotton towels, and Charlie instantly claimed those. When Cam looked at him in askance, he told her quietly, "Sweetheart, those towels will feel better against that new tender skin you're growing than the government-issue base towels." After which Shana and Olivia unanimously agreed that the towels were Cam's, even when Cam tried to give a couple to Liv for Auggie. There were also crisp, snowy-white 600-thread count Egyptian cotton bedsheets, which Charlie claimed for their bed at base, saying they would feel better than the regular- issue sheets, and Shana insisted she could get Clayton to let her have them. "Doc could even write a prescription saying they're medically necessary, and Clayton will definitely agree to that." Toiletries were dismissed and disposed of—no one wanted them—and then they went on to the bedroom.

While the bed was a truly impressive massive cherrywood four-poster, the thought of what Singletary might have done in that bed with willing (or unwilling, or underage) participants made them all pause for a long while. "We could sell it or just give it away. I don't think anyone really want this." An examination of the closets revealed clothing, expensive designer suits and Italian leather shoes that they all agreed could be donated to a local clothes closet or thrift store.

Most of the drawers in the dresser revealed more clothing, but one drawer held…well, when Cam saw the contents she turned slightly pale, and Shana left the room, came back with a black plastic garbage bag, which Liv held while she pulled the drawer out and dumped its contents into the bag. "No need to look at any of that junk," Shana snapped, and no one demurred.

When they opened the night table drawer they found a collection of photo albums. "I think we should at least give him back his family pictures," Alex said quietly as she picked one up. "He may be a jerk now, but he was a kid once whose mother loved him." And she opened the album.

And then shut it very quickly, smile vanishing. "No, no need to look at this," she said. "But if you can find a box for these, Liv and I can take it back to the precinct." That, and the look on her face, told them all what she was looking at, and Shana nodded as Alex piled the albums on the bed. No one else even bothered to look at them.

The last room in the apartment was Singletary's 'office'; a massive desk easily the equal to Clayton's sat in the middle of the floor, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves behind it. While a lot of them seemed to be business books, books on business law, and there was actually a whole shelf given over to bondage-themed erotica (which Shana quickly cleared into the trash bag), Cam was reverently sorting through the books a few shelves over, which contained, of all things, classics, in beautiful tooled-leather bindings and gilt-edged pages. "I doubt he ever read them, but they're collectors' editions of some of the greatest literary works of the world. Look. Greek philosophers, Roman history, comparative religion, English classics including Shakespeare and Doyle, Dumas, Spencer…" She looked at Charlie. "I want to keep these, but there's nowhere at the cabin for them."

"My parents' house is almost done. They could keep the books and bookshelves there—I know my father would probably enjoy reading them to my mother—and they're close enough that you can go and borrow the ones you want to read whenever you want."

"We could have one of those mobile storage pods brought here, and we can load whatever you want to take into it and pack it. Then they come and haul it away, and deliver it to the closest town to you. From there it would just be a matter of a couple of trips with vehicles to take everything out of it to my parents' house."

"That'll work, then," she said.

They hesitated for a long while, looking at the computer. "My parents could use one at their house, but we also don't know what's in it," Charlie said.

Shana grinned and snapped her fingers. "We'll take it back with us. Mainframe and Jammer can wipe it clean, no questions asked because they'll know whose it was and where we got it, and reset it so your parents will never know what used to be on it. They're experts, they'll make sure nothing objectionable is left on there." General approbation at that.

Meanwhile, Alex was walking around the room, tapping against walls. "What are you doing?" Olivia asked her curiously.

"Singletary's lawyer gave me a piece of paper with the combination to the safe in this apartment. He wouldn't tell me what was in it, but he said that it was very important that we find it and that Cam got what was in it. He wouldn't tell me what, because he said Singletary was expecting an order of restitution and didn't want this—whatever it is—to be reported as part of his assets. And the lawyer says he doesn't mind Cam getting it, because Singletary's doctor says he's going to be dead within the month from this disease. So now I'm looking for this safe that's supposed to be here somewhere."

Shana and Cam got into the act, tapping on walls to see if one sounded hollow, but they couldn't find anything in the office. Finally, frustrated, Shana said, "If I were the greedy, grasping type, where would I hide something so precious I didn't even want to tell the court about it?"

"The bedroom," Cam said, and shot off across the office back to the bedroom.

Once in the bedroom, they started the process again, tapping on the walls and listening for tonal differences. But it was Charlie who found it when he sat down on the bed and leaned against the headboard; as his head hit the mirror hanging on the wall behind the bed it moved, and when he turned to look, pushing the mirror aside, it revealed the corner of a metal square.

It was a simple matter for him to stand on the bed, lift the mirror down off the wall and hand it to Olivia and Cam. Once off, they saw a square of metal, obviously the door of the safe, with a digital keypad slapped on it. Alex keyed in the combination that Singletary's lawyer had given her, and the door swung open.

At first glance, it didn't look like much; a couple of beige canvas sacks about the size of a four-pound bag of sugar, about half-full of something. Shana reached in to grab one, and blinked in surprise. "It's heavy!" she exclaimed, and dropped it on the bed, then yanked impatiently at the string knotted around the neck of the bag until it opened, then upended it on the bedspread.

What fell out was nothing any of them expected.

A river of shiny faceted stones, all shapes, sizes and colors of the rainbow lay in a glittering heap on the bedspread. The largest was about the size of Charlie's thumb, the smallest maybe the size of Cam's little fingernail, but there was absolutely no doubt what these objects could be and they all stared, dumbfounded. Almost as if in a trance, Shana reached in for two more bags, emptying them out onto the bedspread, adding to the glittering pile.

Alex finally found her voice. "Are those….real?"

"Since he found it necessary to keep them in a locked safe and didn't want these babies added to the list of his 'assets', yes, I would imagine they are indeed real." Shana's eyes were as round as saucers as she picked up a teardrop-shaped deep green stone. "It's like finding pirate treasure."

"Is there any more in there?' Cam choked, and Shana turned, fished the last canvas bag out, and opened it. What came out were unpolished, uncut stones, but these were larger—the smallest was the size of Cam's thumbnail and the largest was big enough to fit in a circle made from Charlie's thumb and forefinger. "Jesus God," Shana gasped, as she reached in, and now came black velvet boxes in all different sizes and shapes. Flat square boxes; long narrow flat rectangular boxes; square boxes that clearly held rings. As she pulled out each one, Alex, Cam, Liv and Charlie opened it so the contents could be displayed, and when Shana's searching hands finally found nothing but air and she knew the safe was empty, she turned to see the glittering bounty they'd uncovered.

Rings, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, watches with colored stones that she just knew were real; an enormous antique gold pocket watch crusted with green stones; heavy men's rings that were pure gold with no stones, and a truly exquisite ladies' choker necklace made of six enormous red stones, each perfectly matched to the other, surrounded with what Shana was sure were diamonds on a heavy gold chain. That had a bracelet, ring, and earrings to match.

"I…can't take this," Cam finally managed. "Dear Goddess, this must be…I can't even imagine how much these cost!"

"Do you see anything you like?" Shana asked.

"I don't think I'd ever wear any of it," Cam said.

Shana rolled her eyes, and her voice sharpened. "Cameron Heather Arlington, can you, just once, forget about whether something has a practical use or whether you'll actually wear it? Forget about where it came from and whose it was and just answer the damn question: Do you see anything you like?!"

Cam swallowed hard and picked up an eighteen inch necklace made of deep blue-violet stones. "I sort of do like this one."

"Then it's yours." Shana closed the velvet box and gave it to her, along with the matching earrings, ring, and bracelet. "May have to get that ring sized for your finger, and your ears aren't pierced so you'd have to get that done—don't worry, it barely hurts at all—but Charlie would love to see you in that." She reached for a necklace and earring set made of seven perfectly matched teardrop shaped green stones. "Now, if you're just going to let us pick out what we want, then I like this."

Alex picked up the choker with the red stones, and the earrings, bracelet, and ring to match. Olivia picked up a huge polished opal set in silver on the end of a long, plain chain, with opal nugget earrings to match, then she hesitated. "Can I make a request—and a suggestion?"

"Sure," Shana was busy scooping the uncut stones into one bag as Alex was putting handfuls of the faceted, cut stones into another of the bags.

"My suggestion is that we take these to a jeweler and find out if these are real, what kind of stones they are, and what they're worth. If the stone isn't certified by the International Gemological Association or the Gemological Institute of America they aren't really worth much, so we should try to get them authenticated and validated if at all possible."

"That's a good suggestion. What's the request?"

"I've been looking online at gem dealers looking for loose gemstones in my birthstone, Clayton's birthstone, and Auggie's birthstone for one of those family rings and family pendants. If the stones are real, could I pick out a couple…"

She trailed off as Cam smiled brilliantly. "Of course you can. And Shana should too, seeing as how she's having two." The mother of the twins glared at her as she smiled sweetly.

"Okay. I know someone who might know where to find a good gemologist."

The someone, as it turned out, happened to be John Munch. Cam raised her eyebrows when she met him pulling up in an ancient, battered Cadillac outside Liv's apartment a few days later; she had two bags of the loose gems in her backpack, Shana had one more bag of cut gems and the other bag of uncut stones, and Munch quipped , "I feel like a rich man," as they both got in.

"Two beautiful women carrying jewels? I should think you'd feel like one of the wise men from the Bible!" Shana joked.

"Shana, stop. I'm not beautiful." Cam was blushing a brilliant pink.

"Don't say that," John Munch said as he pulled away from the curb. "Don't say that. Yes, you are beautiful. You have survived more than anyone should have to in a lifetime, and you haven't let it sour you or embitter you. You aren't doing drugs or drinking, you've focused on helping others and serving our country and that makes you one of the most beautiful people I know. I can't think of many others who could do what you've done."

"Thank you," Cam said quietly, then squared her shoulders. "And while we're on that topic…I owe you an apology."

He stared at her with an expression of surprise. "For what?" he asked as horns honked behind them and he started the car moving again.

"For not being honest, all those years ago. When Mrs. Green over at school saw the bruises and called the police and you asked me what was going on, I lied. I didn't tell you. When Olivia told me she worked with you, and told me that she told you what I went through…all I could think about was how bad you must have felt that you couldn't prevent what happened, and I am so sorry I wasn't honest."

John wedged the Cadillac into what looked like an impossibly small space in front of a tiny, nondescript storefront and turned it off, then turned to her. "It's all right, Cam, It's hard to tell a stranger what is going on, especially when its someone who don't know and don't trust. I blame your Aunt and Uncle, and the government for putting you with them." He looked at Shana in the back seat, and cracked a smile. "No offense."

Shana grinned. "None taken. Our CO said much the same thing, that the military should have done a little more digging into the Parks' background before just handing Cam over to them."

"So there's no reason to apologize. I understand." John smiled warmly at her as he gently patted her hand. "All right. Let's go in and see what these little rocks of yours are."

Emeralds. Rubies. Sapphires. Diamonds. Pearls, cultured and natural. And lots of semi-precious stones; garnets, amethysts, opals, topaz, and a whole list of other names that Cam would never remember later. He immediately set the uncut stones aside, saying that he would have to have each one inspected for quality before giving them any estimate at all, and Cam signed a contract that would give them permission to examine and give her a price later. It took nearly two hours to sort the cut gems into piles according to what they were, and some stones he carefully pulled out and set aside.

"These are extremely valuable stones," he said finally, tapping the small pile of stones that he'd set aside with a pair of tweezers—each separately. "I strongly advise that you not place these back into the bag with the others. These should have a separate box or case of their own to avoid the possibility that they would knock up against a harder stone and be damaged. This one," he said, picking up a brownish stone that Shana had thought was a smoky quartz, "This is a chocolate diamond. Very trendy right now, and thus very valuable. Here," he indicated another one the size of Cam's thumbnail, "Is a blue diamond. Extremely valuable, extremely good quality. Properly certified, it could go for as much as two thousand dollars, and a piece of jewelry it was set in would probably run to maybe three thousand dollars." He went on to quote her prices for each of the stones he'd set aside singly, then indicated the other piles. "This pile here are all sapphires. You have an astonishing variety of colors here, and all of them would be graded a VVSI—very, very slightly imperfect—all the way up to an FL—internally flawless. Blue sapphires are the most common, but lately the trend in women's jewelry has been running to colored sapphires, which makes some of these that much more valuable…"

Olivia picked out the loose stones she wanted , and the jeweler's eyes lit up when Cam told him quite firmly that she did not have a use for them, they would just sit and collect dust at her reservation, and if they could agree on a fair price for the FL graded, very valuable lot, he could go ahead and have them. Although Shana looked skeptical when Cam said that, the price that the jeweler quoted was high enough to satisfy her. They watched as the jeweler brought out tiny jars, filled each one with cotton, and tucked each FL gem into the jar very carefully. Several that were closely matched in color went into jars together, and then he offered smaller, cushioned bags for the other categories of stones—one bag for the sapphires, one for the rubies, and so forth. When they finally left the store almost four hours later, their load was lightened by a lot, and Cam's bank account was almost a quarter of a million dollars richer.


	27. Chapter 56: Changes

**Chapter 56: Changes**

_Shana…_

Snake Eyes froze as he walked in the door to their quarters, jaw dropping. Then sense and reason (and a certain part of his anatomy rising) made him shut the door.

Shana was sitting on the bed, wearing the emerald jewelry from Singletary's safe and nothing else. Four months into her pregnancy, she was radiant, flushed with health and a motherly glow, and the baby bump between her hips was just large enough now that it displayed quite clearly that she was pregnant but wasn't enough to make her feel uncomfortable yet. Snake Eyes was finding it increasingly hard to keep his eyes and hands off her when they weren't on duty, and while he would have never told Shana this, he was secretly thinking those discharge papers weren't going to come nearly soon enough. He could barely wait for them to be able to simply be man and wife, expecting children, together; military duty was suddenly onerous.

She was sitting on her heels in the middle of the bed wearing nothing but those emeralds, which made her eyes look even greener. He was already stripping off his shirt before he even reached the bed, leaving it (and his pants) sitting in the middle of the floor as he sat down on the bed behind her and nuzzled her neck. She moaned and arched into his touch….

It was only much later as they lay together on rumpled, sweaty sheets, that she told him what had happened that day. He rubbed lotion into her expanding tummy as she described the apartment, how it looked, what they'd found there. Although the original determination had been to bring Singletary's computer back to base for Mainframe and Jammer to work on, in the end it had been decided to let the cyberforensics team at the NYPD check the computer out so that if there was evidence implicating Singletary on any other crimes, or if they could obtain evidence of anyone else engaged in any other crimes, the NYPD could look into it. "Olivia used to work in the computer crimes section, going into chat rooms as a young girl to sniff out the child predators among them, and she says the guys she worked with are some of the best she knows and would trust implicitly."

Snake Eyes smiled knowingly. _You're still going to get the computer from Olivia and have Mainframe look at it after the NYPD is done with it._

"Of course. I don't doubt that the NYPD is good at it, but you and I both know Mainframe is better." She sighed as she started taking the necklace and the rest of the jewelry off. "I don't know if I'll ever have a chance to wear this stuff, but it's beautiful."

_I would have bought you jewelry like this if I knew you'd like it._

"I would never spend money on frivolous items like this. I will, however, take it when it's offered, especially if it's free." Shana grinned cheerfully as she took off the jewelry, then turned on her side to face him, now completely nude. "And Cam got her ears pierced today. She's so used to pain that she didn't even blink when they did her ears, and while I'm glad it didn't hurt, I deplore the fact that she's so desensitized to it that it didn't even register with her."

Snake Eyes hugged her tightly as she stretched out flat on her back and he curled up around her. "At least it's almost over. She's only got a couple more trials to get through—Alex told us on the way to Liv's apartment that a few of the guys whose trials were still coming up took a plea deal because they were so sick with this mysterious strain of syphilis that they simply didn't have the energy to make it through a trial. Those plea deals included generous restitution amounts—seeing as how these guys are dying and won't have any use for the money anyway, three of them were very wealthy and didn't have immediate family or spouse to pass their wealth down to. Alex left them only what they'd need to have a decent funeral and take care of medical expenses. Neither Cam nor Charlie will ever have to work another day in their lives again if they don't want to." She was inordinately cheerful about the fact.

On the other side of the wall between their quarters, Cam and Charlie were preparing for bed. She was standing, undressed, as Charlie carefully pulled surgical tape off the gauze pads that covered her back. "It looks better," he told her as he checked the new skin carefully. "It's not as red anymore. Still kind of pink, but not as red." He ran his fingertips lightly over her shoulderblade. "Does this hurt?"

She shivered, but it wasn't a pained shiver. "It doesn't hurt, I guess…after so long of having scar tissue there and not being able to feel anything through it, it just feels odd being able to feel pressure there again. I guess I'm not used to it."

Charlie examined her back critically. The process of growing new skin had started with her shoulders and was progressing down her back; the scar tissue had been cut away completely from her back and there was new skin from her shoulders to the back of her knees. The doctor couldn't erase all signs that something massively traumatic had happened, but she'd told both Charlie and Cam that she was confident that given time, the new skin would toughen up a bit and would weather well until it would barely be noticeable. And so far it seemed to be working.

The doctor was planning on starting the next week on her chest. Cam had (reluctantly) told her how the skin on her breast had been reconstructed, but to her credit the doctor hadn't looked surprised, shocked, or flustered. She's simply nodded and accepted it. She was planning on doing Cam's shoulders, ribs and torso area, and both legs, but she'd hesitated about doing the injections and laser treatments between Cam's legs, and both Charlie and Cam had decided that it really wasn't necessary; that part of Cam worked just fine, thank you very much. She'd smiled knowingly at Cam's nervous giggle and Charlie's bright flush, and didn't say anything else about it.

"Okay. Now go ahead and lie down in bed." He pulled the covers back (as Shana had predicted, Clayton hadn't had a problem with Cam putting the softer sheets on their bed for her still-tender skin, nor had he had a problem with the plush cotton towels. And Cam had admitted to Charlie that although she thought it was a shocking extravagance, the towels did feel good against her skin when she got out of the bath, and the sheets were sheer luxury.

"You know, after all the restitution money and these jewels you have, neither one of us ever has to work another day in our lives if we don't have to." And that reminded him of something else he needed to tell her. "Dad and Mom called me today. Their house is finished. Mom's having a great time rummaging through yard sales and attending the tribe's craft fairs to decorate their house, and she said to tell you that as soon as you have the time she and Dad will be transferring the remainder of the three million back to you."

"I told them to use whatever they wanted to build whatever they wanted."

"They did. Dad and Mom are pretty simple people, Cam, they probably would have been happy with a little cottage like yours." He wasn't about to tell her what his Mom had actually said—not yet, anyway.

His Mom and Dad had been living in Cam's cottage while the house was being built, and they'd fallen in love with it. It was everything they figured they always needed, and the tribe had welcomed Jimmy and Myra with open arms. The only thing that had kept Myra from building another little cottage exactly like it had been Charlie's letters to them, full of developments; the discovery of Cam's child out there, the restitution that Alex was getting from every person who had ever hurt Cam; and even more recently, the fact that Cam's best friend Shana was pregnant with twins, and when they had stayed at Shana and Snake Eyes' cabin in the Sierra Nevadas, Cam had openly wished her house had enough space that Shana and Snake Eyes could visit.

And so when Jimmy and Myra had built the house, they weren't building something that they were going to live in. Myra had done the building and decorating with Cam in mind, thinking about what Cam might like, with the aim of giving it to Cam (or at least lending it to her when Shana wanted to visit.) And Charlie, after seeing cellphone pictures that his parents had sent to him, agreed with them; he was sure Cam would love this house, the problem was how to tell her his parents were perfectly happy giving it to her while they took hers.

But that was still a long way away; for now, he just wanted to enjoy being with her. As she climbed into bed (still carefully, to avoid injuring or tearing the new skin) he watched the way she moved and when she was comfortable he slid in next to her, carefully arranging himself around her so they could cuddle without him being worried he would hurt her, and fell asleep with the sound of her breathing quietly in his ear.

"So what did you think?" Olivia said finally.

Clayton put his slice of pizza down and wiped his lips with a napkin, then grabbed for his soda cup just in time to keep it from tipping over into Auggie's eagerly-grasping fingers. The boy was clinging to furniture and inching his way around now, and was getting into everything as a result; he seemed to have boundless energy and Clayton was absolutely looking forward to getting Liv and Auggie out of the apartment and into a house of their own. It was rapidly becoming clear that he was not the kind of quiet child who would be able to live comfortably in an apartment. He could already see he was going to have find something for his son to do on summer vacations from school or Auggie was going to get really bored, really quickly.

"I liked it," he said cautiously. "But it depends on you."

Actually, he'd more than just 'liked' it; it was ideal to his point of view. The house was a bit bigger than it had looked from the outside; though it had been advertised as a three bedroom with an extra room that could be used either as a den or a fourth bedroom, it held a lot more possibilities. He could see setting up an office in that den, and the full basement, though advertised as partly finished, actually only needed some flooring down on it. He was already anticipating turning it into a man-cave; sofa, large-screen TV for the guys when they came over to watch football, maybe a pool table and a small wet bar…the possibilities were endless. It even had its own entrance, and later—much later, when Auggie was a teenager—they could put up a couple of strategically placed walls and turn it into a one bedroom apartment. The rooms were generously sized, there was some attic space for storage, he could easily see Liv enjoying puttering around in that kitchen. The furniture, while not new, had been well-cared for and comfortable, and there was plenty of carpeting everywhere for Auggie to enjoy crawling on. The yard was big—they were going to have to get a riding mower for it, and there was even a little fishpond in one corner with a couple of goldfish in it.

And even better, they'd been able to meet one of the former owner's children. The oldest son had been in New York on business, and when the realtor told him she had someone who wanted to see the house he'd agreed to come meet Clayton and Liv and Auggie.

The couple who had owned the house were retirees, the husband had passed away a year ago, and the mother had stubbornly resisted her oldest son's admonishment that she should come live closer to her children so they could care for her. She'd passed away early that spring, and as none of the three kids had wanted the house, being happy with where they were—one in California, and two in Washington State—it had been decided to sell the house. There had been a fourth child, but he'd died in Iraq, and on the basis of that the guy was inclined to look favorably on Clayton's offer for the house.

He'd liked it, but hadn't been sure what Olivia was thinking—she could be pretty hard to read, sometimes. She'd walked all over the house, looking at everything, and while she hadn't said anything outright, he'd been pretty sure she liked it. However, it had been pretty late, and he'd told the realtor that he and Liv would discuss it that night and let them know tomorrow if they wanted to proceed.

So they'd stopped at their favorite pizzeria and picked up a couple of pies to go, then brought them back to Liv's apartment. They were now sitting on her living room floor, pizzas sitting open on the coffee table, watching Auggie pull himself up and inspect the goings-on atop of the table. Olivia had given him a breadstick for him to nibble on, but he seemed rather more interested in the everything-meat pizza pie sitting on the table.

He took his time thinking before he replied. She'd been quiet all the way back, and he hadn't disturbed her; now she was asking what he thought. "I think it'll be okay if you like it," he said finally.

She blew out her breath in an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes, a very Courtney-like expression on her face. Did all women have the same facial expressions, or was Liv just spending too much time on his base with the rest of his girls? He fought down the urge to tell her to watch her attitude around superiors—despite the way her regimented self-discipline felt sometimes, she was not one of his soldiers and he didn't have the right to chide her on her behavior.

And besides, she looked cute when she frowned like that….

"Clayton, don't be such a thickheaded male, all right?" And now he knew she was definitely spending too much time with The Girls. "I know what I'm thinking, but I don't know what you're thinking. Since this is going to involve money from both of us, I need to know whether you're going to like it."

It was on the very tip of his tongue to tell her that he could buy it with no help from her at all, but he decided being sensible and intelligent would be a better choice, especially as he was hoping to get to cuddle a little after she put Auggie to sleep in his crib for the evening. So he told her the truth instead. "I was hoping to hear what you had to say first." And he wondered if it was possible for a woman to kill a man with one look.

"I asked first," she glared at him and folded her arms.

He sighed. "Okay truth, sweetheart? I really, really like the place, it's a lot safer there than in this neighborhood, the yard's big enough for a growing boy to play in and he absolutely loved that fishpond, it's close enough to a school that Auggie can walk, and there's lots of kids for him to make friends with and play with."

"Can you see yourself happy in it?" And now he heard the note of uncertainty in her voice and understood her hesitation. She wanted a place that he would be happy in, too; somewhere they both could live and make their own and maybe, eventually, decide to get married. He had to admit, getting married to her was looking more and more attractive each day—he couldn't imagine what his life would be like without her now.

"Yes, Liv, I can see myself happy there. Riding a mower around that yard to cut the grass, maybe build a little sunroom off the back so you can relax with a cup of coffee on the mornings you're off, put some flooring down in the basement and stick a pool table and an entertainment center down there. Little refrigerator for some beer, I can see taking the guys down there for some R&R while you and the girls sit up here and…do whatever girls do."

She started to laugh, helplessly. "Okay, I admit I was thinking about that too. Yes, I do love it, it is perfect, and I would be perfectly happy calling the place home. Now all that's left is to figure out how much we can afford to put down."

He sighed. "And that's another sticking point. Liv, do you have any idea how much I make as a two star General?"

"Um…more than me?" She frowned again.

"Definitely more than you, and Liv, my family is, to put it in layman's terms, loaded. So you tell me how much you want to pay per month and I'll put down enough on the house that the monthly mortgage will be well within your budget. Take into account that as Auggie gets bigger you'll need more money—clothes, school supplies, regular food—"

And at just that moment the second pizza box went flying, sent halfway across the room by Auggie grabbing at the top of the table. Olivia scrambled after the box to get it up off the floor before pizza sauce stained the carpet, and Clayton made a grab for Auggie—a grab that came up empty as the boy scooted around the other side of the table, his chubby little baby fingers curled tightly around a slice of pizza. When Clayton tried again, Auggie just scooted further around the other side of the table, still clutching the pizza. "Peesa!" he giggled, ignoring the sauce that squirted between his fingers. "Peesa!"

Clayton stared at Olivia. She looked back at him. Then they both turned to look at their son, who was now happily dissecting the slice, oblivious to the pizza sauce and strings of melted cheese slowly dripping to the carpet.

Olivia finally turned to Clayton. "Trust _your son_ to get his priorities straight. I've been trying to get him to say Dada for weeks, and instead his first word is something he can get into his stomach."

"I've been trying to get him to say Mama."

Auggie thrust his messy fist in the air. "Peesa!" he crowed triumphantly. "My!"


	28. Chapter 57: Flashback

**Chapter 57: Flashback**

Shana's good mood vanished when she walked into the courtroom on Wednesday morning.

Cam had been increasingly silent for most of the weekend; her only smile had been when the jeweler had sent her an email saying the raw uncut stones were of exceedingly good quality and though they'd only been able to evaluate maybe half of them yet, she was already looking at almost another quarter of a million dollars. Her only laugh had been when Clayton related the story of Auggie's first word, in tones that spoke of a mixture of irritation (that said first word hadn't been what Clayton wanted him to say) and pride in his son's growing independence.

The rest of base simply thought it hilarious.

But Shana had barely seen Cam that weekend, or even Charlie, and when she'd seen Alex leaving base on Sunday night she'd asked Alex what was going on. Alex had said simply, "Cam's really tense about the trial this week."

There had been so many developments in the ongoing trials that Shana had been having trouble keeping track, and her growing belly was taking increasingly more of her time and attention. Out of the sixteen trials that they'd started with, there were actually only three left, but when she did some rapid thinking, she realized that these were probably going to be the most stressful for Cam. One was Antonin Jelescu, the man who'd paid the Parks thousands of dollars for the privilege of making videos in which Cam was 'killed'; Ritchie Curry, and David Biehl.

Anita's group had been too sick to continue; everyone, including Anita and Andrew, had accepted plea deals (and gave up generous chunks of their money for the privilege.) Each one of them was now going to spend ten years behind bars; while that might have seemed like a lot, Anita and Andrew had each pled guilty and been sentenced to thirty years. Not that they were actually going to serve any of those thirty years; both were now in a secured ward in a Manhattan hospital virtually unresponsive and barely clinging to life. Shana wasn't inclined to feel pity for either of them, and neither, she suspected, did anyone else.

And when she walked into the courtroom that Wednesday, and saw the tall, slender man in an immaculate Armani suit sitting behind the defense table—alone—she felt a ripple of anger and unease. And when the judge (not Liz Donnelly this time, but it was another woman—the nameplate on the desk said Lena Petrovsky) called the court to order and the man behind the defense table stood up, she felt herself shudder. Ritchie Curry was a lawyer, and he was going to defend himself.

She couldn't figure out why he would want to do that, and even the judge seemed surprised. "Mr. Curry," she said, leaning forward and fixing him with a steely gaze that would have done Hawk proud, "Are you absolutely sure you want to defend yourself against charges of this magnitude?"

"Yes, Your Honor, I'm sure," Curry said, his voice silky smooth. "I don't feel that anyone else would represent me and my interests in this matter as well as I could myself."

_He actually does mean that,_ Shana thought with surprise. _Surely he can't think he has even a hope of getting a not guilty verdict—he has to have been following the news, he's got to know that every person Alex has prosecuted in connection with Cam's exploitation and abuse has been convicted so far, and even those who didn't go to trial all pled guilty. What's his game here?_ She'd gone through law school, taken bar exams; she knew that Alex had an all-but airtight case against him. Not only the ledger and copies of the 'souvenir video' that each client got after their week at the New York cabin, but also copies of videos of other clients who had come and paid to use Cam. The NYPD cyberforensics team that had hacked Yu's computer and dissected it had traced many of the purchases through the money paid to the holder of the bank account, and while Alex wouldn't discuss all the details, she'd assured Shana that she had enough testimony from them (in exchange for guilty pleas) to be able to demonstrate a clear chain of custody from Yu's website to the end user.

So Shana couldn't see why Curry would have chosen to represent himself in this.

Alex stood to make her opening statement. "Ladies and gentlemen of the court, you are here today to hear the facts behind the charges of child molestation, child rape, assault and battery, and creation, possession, and distribution of child porn.

"The prosecution's witness, Corporal Cameron Arlington, was fifteen when two people who called themselves her Aunt and Uncle took her to Western New York, locked her in the basement of a vacation lodge owned by a relative, and accepted staggering sums of money from a very large number of pedophiles who wanted a chance to rape an underage girl. She was held captive for three years, during which time she was rented out to pedophiles.

"By the time she was seventeen, however, her aunt and Uncle were losing revenue due to the fact that she was no longer young enough to be pleasing to their usual clients. Now, instead of selling her to pedophiles, they were peddling her to sadists, like Mr. Curry.

"Yes, Mr. Curry is what we would consider a sadist—he enjoyed seeing a woman scream in reaction to the pain he caused her. But there were limits to what he could do even with the most consenting, masochistic woman or drug-addicted, jaded prostitute; and besides, what he really wanted was something else—he wanted youth.

"And when he was contacted by Leo Yu, he saw his chance. Here was his ideal situation; a girl held captive, unable to complain, unable to protest, unable to stop him or call the police or claim her rights; a girl who no one would miss, whose relatives had been so effective at cutting her off from society, isolating her from school, from friends, from anyone who might ask about her, a girl who had nothing and no one. A girl to whom he could do anything if he just paid her Aunt and Uncle enough money."

Shana could see the sick looks on the jurors' faces, and even on a few of the faces in the gallery as Alex went on. "Here was everything he wanted; young, female, no one to complain to, unable to assert rights to anything at all, not the right to complain, the right to call the police if he went overboard. And he took full advantage of the situation; he not only raped her, he offered his services in designing and engineering various devices with which she could be tortured—and in exchange for leaving these devices at the cabin for others to use, her Aunt and Uncle gave him a discount on her rental price. He visited the cabin eight times over three years, staying a week each time and paying nearly four thousand dollars for each visit. Her Aunt and Uncle complained that he was damaging her too much since each visit left her almost unresponsive and it was days before she could even get out of bed after he left, but he simply threw more money at them and they took it…and kept accepting his reservations."

Cam opened her mouth, and Alex looked at her sensing she wanted to speak. "I was hysterical every time they told me he was coming," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I hated it, hated him, hated every minute. I would have attacked him if I could, I would have killed him with my bare hands if I'd ever had the chance. I would have killed myself to keep him from ever touching me if it had been possible. I tried to electrocute myself, tried to reach the light fixture right above my bed so I could hang myself, even tried wrapping my own hands around my neck to kill myself—but I couldn't do it. I hated myself for being so weak I couldn't make it end. Oh, Goddess, I couldn't make it end…" her voice trailed off as she visibly tried to get hold of herself…and just ended up breaking down further.

"Your Honor, a recess please?" Alex said quietly, and the judge nodded, tapping her gavel. Cam got to her feet slightly unsteadily, and left the witness box. Her legs were shaking, and she was plainly in distress, and Alex started to walk around the table to help her.

A sudden move from Curry caught her eye, and she turned. He'd made a quick, sudden move toward Cam, almost a lunge, but abortive, quick, furtive. _What the hell?_ But then a sound from Cam made her turn quickly.

Cam had backed up against the table, eyes wide, tears streaming down her face. "Please…please," she whispered, and she didn't sound like her usual self, she sounded lost and alone and her voice was higher-pitched, like a child; like the child she'd become in what Alex had suddenly realized was a PTSD flashback. "Please please please don't hurt me, I'll be a good girl, I promise, please!" She had backed away from him with each word until her back was to the wooden divider that separated the court floor from the benches in the gallery, and now she put her back to the corner and curled into herself, tucking her knees up to her chest as she threw her hands up in a purely defensive gesture. "I'll do whatever you want, just please don't hurt me!"

Her pleas and sobs were heartrending, and in the gallery Alex saw Shana get to her feet and start threading her way to the court floor. _Good, she can get Cam snapped out of this—_

And then Curry stepped forward, moving quickly toward Cam, and Cam screamed, a sound of pure terror. And Alex looked at Curry's face as he heard the sound, and understood in that moment why he'd chosen to represent himself. He knew she was going to win, and he'd set it up so he could have this one last victory, this one last vision of her cowering terrified in front of him, to take with him to prison. He'd wanted to know if the adult Cam was still terrified of him as the younger Cam had been.

And she wasn't the only one who'd noticed. Even as Shana's footsteps sped up, as she hurried to Cam's side, Lena Petrovsky's voice cut through the thick, heavy appalled silence of the courtroom. "Bailiff. Remove Mr. Curry from the courtroom. Mr. Curry, I am fining you one thousand dollars for your flagrant contempt of the sanctity of this court. You have deliberately set out to disrupt these proceedings by triggering a flashback in the witness, and I will not tolerate this in my courtroom. Get him out of here. Court will recess for the day." Her voice was cold.

Shana was next to Cam, on the floor—with difficulty, since the bump before her hips was now making movement more difficult. "Cam. Cam, look at me. Cam, it's Shana. You're not in the basement anymore, you're in a courtroom, and Ritchie Curry is gone, Cam. He's gone and he can't hurt you anymore. I'm your friend, Cam, I'm your friend and I won't let him—or anyone else—hurt you ever again. Okay? Come on, Cam, focus on the sound of my voice, on what I'm saying, and come back, okay? Come back, Cam."

Her voice was soft, persuasive, and slowly under the barrage of comforting reassurances, gradually Cam started to uncurl from the tight ball she'd collapsed in, started relaxing more and more, and finally her eyes opened. "Shana?" she said softly. "Shana, I'm so sorry…"

"Nothing to be sorry for, Cam, nothing. There is nothing that you need to feel sorry for. None of this is your fault." Shana wrapped her arms around her friend in a hug. "Come on, let's get you off this floor and let's go home. It's been a long day."

Home ended up being Liv's apartment; Cam looked so exhausted as she, Shana and Alex left the courthouse that Alex and Shana both decided by unspoken agreement to take her to Liv's apartment. Once there Cam headed straight for the second bedroom. Olivia handed her a set of soft cotton pajamas and Cam slipped into them and went straight to sleep.

Olivia was shaking her head as she joined Alex and Shana in the kitchen. "What happened? I haven't seen her get this upset about anything in a long time."

Shana didn't answer Olivia; instead she focused on Alex. "Stop the trial."

Alex shook her head. "Shana, we're only in the first day, and she was up late last night at the scar clinic. She was just tired and stressed; she'll be fine tomorrow."

Shana ignored her. "It's too much for her, Alex, this is going on the fifth month of trials almost nonstop. She can't keep going like this, Alex. Stop the trial. Plead him out. Whatever you have to do."

"Shana, I understand you're upset on her behalf but to stop it now will mean there will be no justice for—"

"I don't give a damn about justice anymore, Alex! You want justice? Justice is not forcing someone who has already gone through more than any two people should have to go through in any lifetime to go through this. Justice is letting her finally live her own life free from the shadows of her past. Justice is not forcing her to relive things she'd rather not remember, justice is not forcing her to have to recount every gruesome, disgusting, lewd, indecent act she's ever had done to her or that she's ever done in order to survive to a room full of uncaring strangers. Justice is not forcing her to keep a promise she made to you in desperation because she wanted to get the only friend she'd ever had out of a damn mess that friend should never have gotten herself into in the first place!"

"Stop it, both of you. You're going to wake Cam—and Auggie—up with your shouting." Olivia's voice cut through the angry tones of the two women. "Shana, don't get angry, it's not good for the babies. Trust me, I know, Auggie always got more active when I was upset." She turned to Alex. "But I have to agree with Shana—I've been keeping an eye on Cam since all of these trials started, and while she's held up pretty well given everything that's happened, she's been dropping weight, not sleeping well, and just getting more tired and more stressed. Her nightmares have been getting worse too, and if she has to keep testifying and testifying, she's going to break under the strain, Alex. I understand we want to get justice for her, and justice for anyone else that the pedophiles who abused her might have also harmed, but there's a fine line between wanting justice and being overzealous, and that line is where Cam's health starts suffering for it." Over the kitchen table Olivia's brown eyes locked with Alex's blue, and it was the blue eyes that dropped first. Without a word, Alex left the kitchen, and moments later they heard the apartment door close behind her.

Olivia blew out her breath. "Whew. I'm glad that's over. Now what exactly happened?"

Shana deflated, sitting abruptly down at the table with a huge sigh; she was carrying enough weight now that her feet hurt after standing for periods; while her concern for Cam had prevented her from noticing it at the time, the adrenaline was wearing off and she was now suddenly tired. "Cam had a CPTSD flashback in court today. She was having a hard time keeping it together on the witness stand, and the judge granted us a recess, and then as she was leaving the witness box Curry made a sudden move toward her, and it freaked her out. She lost it, regressed back to the abuse, and just ended up curling up on the floor and begging him not to hurt her. Fortunately I was able to talk her out of it fairly quickly, much quicker than usual, and we brought her right here. These trials are putting a lot of stress on her, that and the scar reduction surgery she's going through right now, and none of this is good for her health. I meant what I said, about justice—we've prosecuted and put in jail so many of the people who hurt her, now letting her live her life would be justice for her." Shana lowered her voice. "Back at the cabin on our honeymoon, she did some kind of ritual prayer—she said she was asking the Goddess to grant her justice, even if it wasn't by trial."

Olivia's eyes showed sudden comprehension. "And then all the people who molested her suddenly started coming down with this same mysterious strain of syphilis that kills, and the only commonality is that they all used the Parks' twisted playground. Amaro and I have been keeping an eye out for more people who might have hurt her—there were actually ten or fifteen people we suspected had paid to molest Cam because their names were in the ledger, but we couldn't find physical proof of what they did—they didn't keep the souvenir video, or it's been lost in the intervening years. And although we still can't prove it, lately all the people we suspected but couldn't prove a case has suddenly come down with that same strain of syphilis. Four of them have died. We were wondering about that, and the only thing I can think of is that Someone out there is getting justice for Cam, just not in a courtroom."

Shana nodded. "I agree with that too. And that was why I was willing to tell Alex to drop the rest of the trials knowing that Cam's still going to get justice."


	29. Chapter 58: Discharge

**Chapter 58: Discharge**

Shana inspected Cam critically the next morning when the younger woman came to the breakfast table. "You look terrible," she said critically.

"Gee, thanks," Cam said with a ghost of a smile.

"No, really. You look terrible. How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Cam said, but even Olivia could tell she didn't mean it, and Auggie's antics as he experimented with the pancake Liv put on his highchair tray didn't even bring a smile to her face.

"You're not fine, Cam," Liv said, putting her fork down and laying a hand gently on the younger woman's forehead. "You're hot. And flushed. Are you running a fever?" She got up, rummaged in a drawer and came up with a thermometer. "Here."

"Olivia—"

"Don't 'Olivia' me. You're sick and I don't think you should even be out of bed." She held the thermometer out until Cam obediently opened her mouth, then popped it in. Moments later, when it beeped, she pulled it out. "Uh huh. A hundred. I knew you were running a fever. I'm calling Alex." Her cellphone was out and she was busy texting a message. "Shana, I recommend you take her back to base and tuck her in bed and let her husband fuss over her for a little bit. It'll be good for her." When Cam opened her mouth to say something, Olivia held up a warning finger. "If you're about to complain, don't waste your breath. You can't sit in a courtroom and testify running a hundred-degree fever."

"She won't have to," came a new voice, and they turned as Alex walked into the kitchen. She'd come in so quietly they hadn't even heard the front door open. "Sorry for sneaking in. I wasn't sure if anyone was awake yet."

"Of course we're awake, there's a baby in this apartment. It's his job to wake us all up at an ungodly early hour of the morning," Shana said, only half-joking; Auggie had indeed woken them up that morning.

"Get used to it, because you're having two," Olivia admonished with a smile.

The mother of the twins looked rueful as she returned her attention to the pile of pancakes on her plate. She seemed to be hungry all the time now, her appetite endless, and though she hadn't developed a craving for unusual foods, she was certainly eating more than enough of everything to negate that. "So what did you mean by Cam not having to testify today?"

"Ritchie Curry died in jail last night."

Cam dropped her fork in shock as everyone stared at Alex in consternation. It was Shana who finally blurted out, "How?"

"He was found dead in his cell by the guard who came in to take him to dinner last night. The initial finding by the doctor at the hospital is cardiac arrest."

"He had a heart attack?" Cam found her voice.

Alex nodded. "So far as anyone is aware, he has no history of heart problems, was in good shape, exercised and went to the gym regularly. It's taken everyone completely by surprise, but well, his trial is over. I'll still wait for the autopsy reports because even the prison says it seems like a remarkable coincidence, but the end result is that he's still dead and no one touched him. Except maybe fate." She cleared her throat, took a deep breath. "All right. I have a confession and an apology to make. Shana, you and Liv were right last night, I was letting my desire for justice against the perps blind me to justice for their victim. I am going to move for dismissal of the charges of hurting Cam in the remaining two trials so Cam won't have to go through the stress of testifying."

All three women saw the tightness go out of Cam's shoulders, muscles relaxing in relief, but she still made a token protest. "Alex, I don't want you to give up your cases just because of me."

"I'm not giving them up because of you, I'm giving them up for you. Because Shana and Liv were right, you deserve justice too, and you have never gotten any, not from your Aunt and Uncle, your employer the Army, even your Goddess. It's about time you got some. So. I am dismissing the other two cases." Her lips quirked in a small smile that, had Shana been asked to describe it, would have characterized it as 'quietly vicious'. "These last two, Jelescu and Biehl, had more pictures than just yours on their computers. Just because I take charges of molesting you off the table doesn't mean I can't get them on something else."

The tension melted out of Cam, and she stared at Alex, eyes filling with tears—but there was a light in them, shining way down there, a light that Shana hadn't seen since their honeymoon. "Alex… thank you…"

"You're welcome," Alex said cheerfully.

Shana turned to Cam. "Even though you're not testifying, I'd still like to be in the courtroom when Alex dismisses the charges. You could call Charlie at base and ask him to come pick you up—"

"Uh-uh." Olivia's firm negative put an end to that idea. "I'm off today. I'll drive Cam back to base—it's been a couple of days since Clayton saw Auggie, I want to remind him he has a son out here." But the light in her eyes gave the lie to her words—she missed Clayton probably more than Auggie did. "So I'll drive Cam to base and get Doc to look at her, and when you get out of court today, you can bring Shana when you come out to base to pick up Ettienne for your date."

Shana waited until they were on the road before she ventured a quiet "Thank you, Alex. And…I'm sorry for yelling at you last night."

Alex heaved a sigh as she started threading her way through traffic. "I'll admit I was a little upset with you when I left yesterday. But once I calmed down and started really thinking, I had to admit to myself you were right. When trials started after you guys came back from your honeymoon, I thought that Cam looked really good, looked like she was recovering well, and then I just sort of saw her every day during trials and didn't realize just how hard all of this was on her until she had that flashback in the courtroom yesterday. She lost a lot of the weight and muscle that she'd come back from her honeymoon with, and I didn't even notice. That was when I realized you were right. And then, just now, walking in there...I heard Liv tell her she was running a fever and I know she's wearing Liv's pj's but she looked so small and lost sitting at the table that I knew I was doing the right thing." She pulled into her parking space at the courthouse and turned off the engine. "So no more trials. She's done. I don't think the judge is going to have a problem with it either, not after seeing what happened yesterday."

And the judge didn't.

Lena Petrovsky raised her eyebrows when she called the court to order and Alex stood up without Cam at the table beside her. "Madam Prosecutor, I don't see your witness."

"Corporal Arlington is not feeling well today. After the events of yesterday afternoon, I'm sure you understand why."

"I do indeed. Can you explain what happened?"

"She suffers from complex post traumatic stress disorder. While you've probably heard of it as a mental disorder soldiers come back from deployment with, it can also be exhibited by victims of intense physical exploitation, as Cam was. Her being subjected to such extreme physical abuse particularly at such a young, impressionable age and under such circumstances has left her with underlying psychological trauma. This results in displays such as you saw yesterday, flashbacks in which she is lost in intense, vivid memories of what happened to her and is unaware of what is happening around her and where she is. These flashbacks are triggered by stress and being subject to situations similar to those in which said vivid memories were created."

"Will she be all right?" And Shana detected a note of real concern in the older woman's voice.

"She was running a fever this morning and evinced general unwellness. I have, therefore, come here with a motion to dismiss the charges against Mr. Curry, as he is now deceased."

"Motion granted," Lena Petrovsky said quickly after a quick affirmative nod from Curry's lawyer

"And I am also submitting a motion to dismiss the charges against the two remaining defendants accused of molesting Corporal Arlington, whose trials were scheduled to run directly after this one."

"Are you serious, Alex?" Petrovsky was so surprised she forgot to call Alex by her title. "You're dropping a case?"

"Two cases. In the interests of justice, Your Honor." Shana got the distinct impression that Alex was enjoying having surprised the older woman—they clearly knew each other and were friendly outside the courtroom, and her actions were just as clearly surprising to Petrovsky. "As I was reminded yesterday, justice isn't always about putting criminals in prison to pay for what they've done; justice is also about finding closure for the victims, helping them recover from what happened to them and helping them move on. Corporal Arlington held up well through most of it, but yesterday the stress, and Ritchie Curry, just got too much for her and she had a flashback—something I haven't seen from her since she started counseling. I therefore decided to drop the charges relating to her from the last two cases in this pedophilia ring. It's time for her to focus on her physical and mental recovery and her life, and time to leave her past behind."

"Motions granted, Madam Prosecutor. Please give the court's sincere thanks to Corporal Arlington for her testimony and inform her that we wish her all the best for the rest of her life."

Alex and Shana saw their guys waiting for them as they pulled into the Fort Wadsworth motorpool, along with Liv and Clayton, carrying Auggie. Auggie ignored them all in favor of playing with the braid and rank pins on his father's uniform, but Ettienne sprinted across the motorpool to wrap hi arms around Alex in a tight hug as he said quietly into her ear, "I'm so proud of you, Lexi," to which she blushed a bright pink.

On the other side of the car, Shana was trying to heave herself out of the passenger seat. Snake Eyes ran to her, started trying to help her, but she said, "Snake Eyes, I'm pregnant, not helpless!" at which he stood back and allowed her get out by herself. As soon as she was out he gave her a big hug (albeit carefully, as her baby bump was expanding exponentially, seemingly daily) and she returned the hug with interest, slightly sorry that she'd snapped at him. The two couples broke off their embraces as Clayton came up.

"Permission to come on base sir." Alex saluted; so did Shana.

Clayton returned the salute, a silent permission, and then said cheerfully, "So how did it go?"

"Lena granted dismissal motions for the Curry case, the Jelescu case, and the Biehl case. I think she was little surprised that I chose to do so but I explained it was in Cam's best interests, and while I think the unit will be annoyed, they'll understand why I did it too." Alex scanned their little gathering. "Where's Cam?"

"Bed," Liv said succinctly. "She threw up in the car on the way back here, and Doc diagnosed her with flu and sent her straight to bed. Charlie's fussing over her now, and I don't have to tell you he's relieved that all of this is over and she's home for good."

"I'll just bet." Alex nodded emphatically.

At just that moment the overhead speakers squawked to life, and they heard Allie's voice over the intercom. "General Hawk, please come to your office."

Clayton sighed. "I guess I'd better go find out what that's about. Here," he handed Auggie to Liv, ruffling the tousled brown curls affectionately. "Try to leave some of the base still standing by the time you leave, hmm?" Auggie giggled and swatted at his father's hand, eliciting chuckles from everyone, and Clayton left grinning.

The grin widened when he saw the envelope sitting on top of the stack of mail on his desk; he picked it up and ripped it open even as he headed for one of the conference rooms, where he could see Allie waiting. As he'd expected, it was a letter from the realtor; the deal on the house had closed, and he and Liv were now the proud co-owners of a rancher on Staten Island, and they could move as soon as Liv got their clothes packed and what little of the apartment's furniture she actually wanted to take.

His pleased smile vanished when he walked into the conference room and saw Allie's stony look. "What?' he asked, concerned; she looked like a thundercloud about to spit lighting, and her eyes were hard. Instead of answering, she shook her head wordlessly and hit the button on the table that would activate the conference viewscreen against the opposite wall.

Lieutenant General Johnson's face filled the viewscreen. "Good evening, Major General Abernathy," he said, but his smile didn't touch his eyes and he had the look of a man about to give someone bad news. And he'd used Hawk's full rank, which meant this was serious.

"Good evening, Lieutenant General Johnson," he said back. Snapping to attention and carefully tucking the letter carefully folded, up his sleeve. "To what do I owe the honor?"

"Discharge papers for Corporal Cameron Heather Arlington, Specialist Charlie Ironknife, Master Sergeant Shana O'Hara, and Master Sergeant Terence O'Hara finally came through."

_So soon?_ But Hawk controlled his reaction. "Acknowledged." _I guess Alex dropped the other two cases just in time._

"I did try to slow them down, Clayton, but I couldn't delay it forever. And the news today was full of the events of the trials yesterday—Corporal Arlington had a CPTSD flashback in the courtroom in front of witnesses and cameras. The military expedited the papers because they're afraid that questions will be raised as to why an officer with this bad a problem has been allowed to retain her rank for so long."

"In other words, we caused this and now we're going to hurry and get rid of her so we don't get bad publicity," Allie glowered from her place standing stiffly by Hawk's side—as Staff Sergeant, she had to be present at conference calls like this. She did not, however, have to like it, and since Johnson had indicated they were free to speak by his use of Clayton's first name, she was apparently going to exercise her right to make her opinion known to the fullest. "None of this would have happened if the military hadn't abandoned her first. If they'd done a little more checking into the Parks' background and claims to be her relative, she would never have gone through what she went through, and in that sense, our negligence is as much to blame for what happened to her as the pedophiles themselves are."

"I can't argue with that. Any of that. Everything you've said is completely true, and I took this same concern to the Secretary of Defense, and while he didn't say anything, I believe he understands too. However, it doesn't change the fact that she will be discharged." He heaved a sigh. "Now I will admit to some reluctance at seeing Master Sergeant O'Hara's—both Master Sergeant O'Haras—discharge papers, they are an incredible asset to the US Military and I will, as I'm sure you'll agree, be sorry to see them leave too."

"I am," Clayton nodded. "But they have a right to make their own choices as to what they want to do, and Master Sergeant Shana O'Hara is pregnant." He grinned suddenly. "I don't know if we told you, but they are expecting twins. A boy and a girl."

"Twins! Should I send the expectant father my congratulations or condolences? I can't imagine having to live with Shana O'Hara's temper—times two if the kids are anything like her."

Allie grinned, her bad mood broke by Johnson's joke. "They are both looking forward to it very eagerly," she said. "In fact, I don't think Snake Eyes is going to have any problem signing the discharge papers—he's been obsessed with Shana when not on duty and I think he's looking forward to being able to obsess over her full time once they're no longer military."


	30. Chapter 59: Changes

**Chapter 59: Changes**

"Where's Cam?" Allie gave Charlie a startled glance when she walked into the room the couple shared and saw only Charlie there, opening drawers and taking out what looked like a soft t-shirt and Cam's yoga pants.

"In the infirmary. Shana was listening to Cam wheeze through a coughing fit and decided she wanted Doc to take a look at her, and Doc said something about flu possibly worsening to pneumonia and wanting to keep an eye on her, so he admitted her to the infirmary and I'm here getting her something comfortable to wear so her body isn't stressed."

"Oh, Jesus," Allie muttered, looking down at her hand where she clutched the discharge papers. "Stressed out over the trials, debilitated by the scar treatment and having the flu with possible pneumonia, and now another piece of bad news—we just got the discharge papers," she said by way of explanation.

She wasn't expecting Charlie to give her a wide, delighted grin. "What?" she asked, startled. "I'd have thought you'd be upset!"

"She might be. But this way, I don't have to worry about balancing duty and her—I can be with her all the time, as much as I want to—or as much as she'll let me."

"Are Shana and Snake Eyes in the infirmary with her too?" Allie asked, and Charlie nodded. "I guess we might as well go break the news all at once."

Cam was lying in one of the infirmary beds covered with a blanket when Charlie, Clayton and Allie came in, and Clayton immediately felt even worse. She looked pale although her cheeks were flushed with fever, and he could hear for himself why Shana had been worried—her breath was rasping in her chest and she sounded horrible. But none of it mattered to Charlie, he went right to her side, wrapped his arms around her and hugged her carefully but tightly, then said gently, "I brought something a little more comfortable for you to wear. Will you let me help you get them on?"

"I'm so sorry, Charlie, I don't want you to feel like you're tied down—" Cam started.

Shana rolled her eyes as she heaved herself out of her chair. "For goodness sake, Cam, stop being such an idiot. It's not a chore for Charlie, he loves fussing over you. And if those papers Clayton is holding are what I think they are, he's shortly going to be able to fuss all over you as much as he wants."

"Yeah, they are what you think they are," Clayton admitted, holding out the four packets of forms. "Look, Cam, if you aren't up to signing them now, it'll wait until you're better, and to hell with what Lieutenant General Johnson might say about the delay. I don't give a damn."

"N-no—I'll sign them—give me a minute." She struggled to a sitting position, but that triggered a coughing fit and her face turned red as she tried to get her coughing under control.

Doc turned to Clayton. "If her signing it means she will need to transfer out of this infirmary and to a regular hospital as soon as she does it, as her doctor I will advise against it. She's not in any condition to be moved right now, her health is fragile and needs to be closely monitored, and she will be more comfortable here than in a regular hospital."

Clayton made a quick decision. Yes, normally as soon as a soldier signed discharge papers they would need to leave base, but in Cam's case he couldn't see her going anywhere. Jesus, she was leaning on Charlie's arm just to get across the infirmary to the bathroom to change into comfortable clothes—and here went Shana, heaving her expanding bulk off the bed next to Cam and coming up on the other side of her friend. "She'll stay here as long as she needs to until you discharge her, Doc," he said. "What Johnson doesn't know won't hurt him." Actually, he rather suspected that Johnson probably did know that, and might have been the reason why he'd faxed the discharge papers over instead of bringing them himself—every time one of the Joes had been discharged in the past Clancy had brought the papers over personally.

Or maybe that was just Clancy…

Cam came back to bed, looking a little better, and Shana reached for a steaming mug on a nearby table and handed it to Cam, who sipped it gratefully. Clayton sniffed and thought he detected a whiff of vanilla spice; Shana saw his look and grinned. "Tea, Clayton. Hot tea. Makes her throat feel better."

Cam put the mug down and took the packet of papers from Clayton, then paused uncertainly as Shana, Snake Eyes, and Charlie took theirs. "Shana—you know you don't have to give up your career for me—I don't want you to give up your career just to protest my being discharged. If you don't want to leave the military you don't have to."

"Cam, don't be silly!" Shana exclaimed in exasperation, looking at her friend with a mixture of amusement and frustration. "I'm not doing this just for you, I'm doing this for them, too." She pointed at her stomach. As if in response, Clayton actually saw one corner of the packet lift slightly as one of the six month old twins in Shana's belly gave an extra hard kick and caused her stomach to bulge slightly. "As active as these two are—you saw that kick—there's no way Snake Eyes and I can raise both of them and still be soldiers. And where he goes, I go. We do this together." Snake Eyes' slight nod and resolutely-folded arms testified to his agreement with Shana's words."

"I just…I don't want to feel like I'm the reason…"

"Stop. Right. There." Shana's voice had a hard edge of anger to it. "Knock it off with the guilt trip, Cam. Stop thinking this is all about you, because it isn't. Snake Eyes and I both talked about it as soon as we found out I was pregnant, way before we all knew the military was discharging you, and we decided then that we were going to ask for a discharge. The only reason I held off telling everyone was because we weren't sure how to break it to everyone. And because…because I didn't want to leave you. I'd sworn that I would be your friend, that I'd be there for you for the rest of my life, and here I was looking at leaving—but then Johnson said you were going to be discharged and that was all I needed."

Cam said nothing, but she reached out a hand to take Shana's, in a brief, tight squeeze, and that was all the two women needed. Something deeper than words passed between them, and neither woman's eye was quite dry as they signed the forms silently.

Snake Eyes fairly snatched his set of papers from Clayton, and his pen flew over them, as did Charlie's. Neither of the two men hesitated—they knew what they wanted, and they wanted to go with their girls. Clayton felt a lump rise in his throat, and tears stung his eyes; he swallowed hard and forced the tears down. They were not only his soldiers, but his personal friends, and he was going to miss them; from Charlie's quiet, stolid dependability, Shana's quick smile, quicker temper, and sometimes exasperatingly cheerful personality, and Snake Eyes' silent, impassive compassion (and ability to scare the pants off new recruits. And Cam; the newest of those departing, he'd known her—God, was it really only a year now?—but he'd come to really like her cheerful stubbornness and he would miss seeing her smile. It still amazed him that someone who'd been through as much as she had could still smile, but there it was, and he was going to miss that about her. _I'm getting old,_ he thought to himself as he silently took the four packets of paper handed to him.

"Clayton, we're not dying, for pity's sake!" the exasperated chuckle caught his attention, and he looked down to see Cam smiling at him through the fever flush on her face. "There's going to be a bit more distance between us than a few floors of base, but that doesn't mean we aren't still going to be friends, still talk, still keep in touch. You can come and visit—in fact, I insist—I'll miss Auggie and we're only three hours out of New York and you and Liv are more than welcome to come visit—and then a look of distress crossed her face. "Um. I might have to expand my cabin before then."

"No, you won't," and the way Charlie drew himself up for this comment told all of them that Charlie had been waiting for an opportunity to say…whatever it was that he was trying to say. "While my Dad and Mom were living in your cottage waiting for their house to be built, they grew to really like your place—and your people. Somewhere along the way, it became less a matter of building that house for them and became a house for us. You and me."

"I don't want—Charlie, that's where my Aunt and Uncle—"

"Sweetheart, I know that. But everything is brand new. It won't remind you of anything like your Aunt and Uncle's cabin. And it has a large south-facing studio for us to conduct rituals in or for you to dance in, and four bedrooms—one for us, and one for Clayton and Liv and one for Auggie if they come up to see us, and one for Shana and Snake Eyes and a separate one for the twins when they come visit—because you know they will be coming to visit."

Shana laughed. "And if we all come visit at the same time?" she grinned.

"The basement has been fitted out as an entertainment room. We can stick all the kids down there by themselves in sleeping bags—they'll love it, trust me. You don't have to go down there if you don't want to, Cam, you never have to go down there. Dad and Mom had the old basement dug up and rebuilt because it wasn't nearly large enough to support the new house sitting on top of it, so everything—from below-ground on up—is absolutely brand new. I'll make sure the basement's clean and neat and kept up, and you'll never have to go down there."

"I love my cottage, Charlie! It's the first thing I ever had that was completely mine!"

He hated that anguished sound in her voice. "If you really want to stay there, Cam, we can. If you look at it and you really hate it, we can stay at your cottage. I just—I just want you to remember that if you want Shana and Snake Eyes and the twins and Clayton and Liv and Auggie to visit, your cottage doesn't have nearly enough room."

"And there was something else I wanted to ask you," Clayton said, breathing a sigh of relief. He'd been thinking about this but hadn't known how to ask Cam without having it seem like an order. "Auggie is a very bright, active, exploratory sort of kid. Summers in New York are going to be a breeding ground for trouble for him because he's going to be bored, and bored means trouble—believe me, I know, I spent a few summers in deep trouble with my parents because I got bored." He ignored Shana's not-quite-muffled snicker. "You said, a while back, that if I ever wanted a favor, all I had to do was ask, that you owed me and I could collect in any way I needed, anytime. Remember that?" Cam nodded.

"So I'm asking. I'd like to send Auggie out to you over summer vacation. Three months of running around up there, learning your people's ways, while you teach him to be self-reliant, self-sufficient, and independent. Teach him how to make his own weapons, how to survive up here on his own, how to find his own food, tracking, navigation, whatever else you can think of. Teach him how to respect the viewpoint of your people, teach him that there are more ways than just the 'white man's way'. I want him to be a very open-minded, self-aware person, and the only way to do that is to expose him to different cultures and different ways of thinking early on." His voice softened. "Cam, you are one of the bravest, strongest, most empathetic and compassionate people I've ever known, and if Auggie can grow up to be even halfway like you, I will have a son to be proud of. And Charlie too," he added as an afterthought, but a quick glance at the big Navajo showed Charlie smiling, not at all offended.

"So there. You're going to need another room for an active little boy to sleep in when he's running all over the reservation with you and Charlie," Shana grinned. "Yet another good reason for you to take the house Charlie's parents built for you."

"Not so fast," Clayton leveled a fierce gaze on Shana and Snake Eyes. "I'd like to send Auggie up to see you on breaks and vacations too. You two are the best I've ever known in self defense and martial arts and I want him to learn from you two too. And rambling all over the Sierra Nevada mountains will let him exercise those navigation, tracking and survival skills he'll learn from Cam and Charlie."

Shana had gone from joking to thoughtful all at once. "You know, that's actually not a bad idea. Let's split the kids' summers, half of it with me, half of it with Cam. You'll send Auggie to me for half the summer, then I'll send him and the twins to Cam and Charlie for the other half of the summer. Because you're right, I'd like Evan and Erin to grow up self-sufficient and independent, open-minded and tolerant and accepting, and the best way to do that is to expose them early to different ways of looking at the world, different ways of doing things, and Cam and Charlie are the best ones to teach them that."

"Wait a minute," Cam said finally, although her eyes were sparkling and there was a slight smile hovering at the corner of her lips. "When were you all going to ask me if I _wanted_ to be descended on by _your_ kids every summer?"

"Oh you _adore_ Auggie, don't even try that with me," Shana scoffed. "I've seen the way you look at him when you're holding him—Liv even asked me once if I thought you'd steal him from her. And he loves you right back, the evenings you spent at Liv's apartment during the trials he cried when you put him down and stopped when you picked him back up. You'll love having the kids around. Trust me."

Cam looked at everyone's faces. Looked at Clayton's broad ear-to-ear grin. Then looked at Charlie and Snake Eyes. "Did anyone think to ask the guys if they agreed with having each others' kids around or sending their kids halfway across the country every summer?"

Charlie looked at Snake Eyes, who shrugged. Fine by me, said his body language. Charlie looked back at Cam, delight in his eyes. "Sorry, Cammie. You're not weaseling your way out of this one. As much as you like to think of everyone else first, and do what's fair for everybody, you're not getting out of this one. We all know how you love the kids, and the kids will love you."

"And if you're worried about how to be 'fair' for everyone, well, look at it this way, you'll be 'fair' by giving us a break from having to deal with our kids," Olivia wasn't bothering to hide the ear-to-ear grin.

"I guess, if you really want it that way…" she took a deep breath and turned to Charlie. "I'll take the house your parents built. But…I'm never going down to the basement, okay? Please?"

Charlie wrapped her in a big bear hug. "Of course, Cam. I'll never make you do anything you really don't want to do."

Clayton cleared his throat, and everyone looked up at him. "Okay," he said firmly. "Liv might need some help getting her stuff packed and moved out to the house on Staten Island, and Snake eyes and Shana and Cam and Charlie will need some help getting their stuff packed and settled in Liv's old apartment. Now , I realize the place is small, and there are some weapons in the dojo that you're probably going to have trouble keeping in the apartment, so I suggest leaving them here at base until the babies are born, then once you head up to your cabin in California I can have them shipped to you. Except for your personal weapons which I imagine you'll take with you." He sighed. "I'll admit that things around here won't be the same without you, and I'll have to look for a couple more hand-to-hand training instructors, and you've left some really big shoes to fill, but I'm happy for you personally and I wish you all the best as you start out your new lives together." And hen he couldn't say anymore; a lump rose in his throat and his eyes misted over.

Cam got off the bed and approached him wordlessly, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. He returned it just as quietly, carefully, mindful of the thinness of the shoulders under his hands, the ribs he could feel standing out in sharp definition under her skin. She'd been through too much, too young, and it was more than time that she had her life all to herself, made her own decisions and her own way, but he also knew that despite having only known her for a year, she'd made a deep impression that he would never forget, and he was glad he'd been privileged to know her, to help her through what had to have been one of the most tumultuous years of her adult life, and he fervently hoped the rest of her life would be boring, dull and uneventful. "I have never and will never regret knowing you," he whispered into her hair, too low for anyone but her to hear. And I am proud to be your friend."

"You too," she said just as quietly, but he knew she meant it.


End file.
